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WALKS IN PARIS 




THE RUE FEROU, NEAR SAINT-SULPICE 



WALKS IN PARIS 



BY 



GEORGES CAIN 

CURATOR OF THE "MUSEE CARNAVALET" 



TRANSLATED BY 

ALFRED ALLINSON, M.A. 



WITH A FRONTISPIECE IN COLOUR BY 

MAXWELL ARMFIELD 

AND 118 OTHER ILLUSTRATIONS AND PLANS 



NEW YORK 

THE MACMILLAN COMPANY 

1909 



c 



k 



% 



Bequest 

Albert Adsit C lemon* 

Aug. 24, 1938 

(Not available for exchange) 



CONTENTS 

THE LEFT BANK 

PAGE 

Round about the Pantheon i 

The Passage du Commerce ; the Cour de Rouen, the Inn of the 

Cheval-Blanc .......... 18 

The Rue Visconti 31 

Round about Saint-Sulpice 44 

The Abbaye-aux-Bois 56 

Round about the Place Maubert 68 

The Jardin des Plantes 79 

Up the Seine — From the Place de la Concorde to Bercy . . go 

Notre-Dame and Neighbourhood; the Place du Parvis, the Rue 

' Chanoinesse, the Tour Dagobert ....... 106 

At the Palais de Justice; the Cour du Mai, the Buvette du 

Palais . . . . . . . . . . .122 

The Depot of the Prefecture de Police; at the Palais de 

Justice 134 

Underneath the Seine 146 

THE RIGHT BANK 

The Place de la Bastille, and the Boulevard Beaumarchais . 155 

The Place des Vosges (Place Royale) 169 

The Passage Charlemagne; Hotel de Sens, Rue Charles-V. . 181 

The Impasse Villehardouin 192 



vi WALKS IN PARIS 

PAGE 

The Rue des Barres; Saint-Gervais, the Rue Grenier-sur-VEau, 

the Rue Geoffroy-V 'Asnier 204 

Saint-Merri and Neighbourhood ; the Rues Pierre-au-Lard, 
Brise-Miche and Taille-Pain, the Rue de Venise, the Rue Quin- 
campoix ........... 217 

The Rue de la Ferronnerie; the Marc he des Innocents; the 

" Caveau " 230 

The Halles and Neighbourhood ; the Cour du Heaume, the 
Rue Pirouette, the Rue de la Grande-Truanderie, the " Ange- 
Gabriel " . . . . . • • • • • • 2 4 2 

The Rue des Bons-Enfants 256 

Boulevard Bonne-Nouvelle ; the Rue de la Lune, the Rue de 

Clery 266 

The Old Boulevard du Temple ; and the Place de la Repub- 

lique 277 

The Bourse and Neighbourhood ; the Rue Vivienne, the Section 

Le Peletier, the Theatre Feydeau, the Vaudeville, the Bourse . 289 

The Colonne Vendome and Neighbourhood . . . .301 

The Place de la Concorde 314 

Index . 3 2 9 



LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS 

PAGE 

Taking of the Louvre in 1830 ........ xiv 

Ticket of Admission to the Ceremony of Laying the First Stone of 

the New Church of Sainte-Gencviive ...... 2 

Rue Saint-Etiennc-des-Grccs ........ 8 

The Pantheon in 1837 ......... 9 

Rue de la Montagne-Sainte-Genevieve . . . . . .11 

Night of 22nd December, 1830 — Troops Fraternizing with the 

People . . . . . . . . . . .12 

Fair of the Neuvaine-Saintc-Gcnevieve ...... 13 

Church of Saint-Etienne-du-Moiit in 1837 ..... 15 

Rue des Cordeliers .......... 19 

Ancient Streets destroyed by the Formation of the Boulevard Saint- 
Germain ........... 20 

House with corner turret in the Rue des Cordeliers .... 22 

Passage du Commerce ......... 24 

Cour de Rouen (Rohan) ......... 26 

Courtyard of the Cheval-Blanc ........ 29 

Rue Visconti ........... 33 

Courtyard of an Old House, now destroyed, in the Rue Visconti . 35 

Portrait of Balzac .......... 37 

Autograph Letter of Balzac 38 

Rue Visconti (after A. Lepere) ........ 39 

Church of Saint-Sulpice ......... 46 

Madame Roland 48 

Rue Ferou ............ 52 

vii 






viii WALKS IN PARIS 

PAGE 

Abbaye-aux Bois .......... 57 

Garden of the Abbayc-aux-Bois ....... 58 

Madame Recamier .......... 63 

Garden within the Cloisters of the Abbaye-aux -Bois .... 65 

Part of a Silk Petticoat once belonging to Madame Dubarry . . 71 

Remains of the old Faculte de Medecine, about 1855 ... 76 

Rue des Anglais and the Cabaret du Pere Lunette . . . 77 

The Bear-Pit at the Jardin des Plantes 81 

The Reservoir ........... 82 

In the Maze 84 

The Grand Conservatories . ....... 85 

Watching the Bears .......... 87 

Building of the Hotel de Salm ........ 92 

Pont-Neuf g6 

Traffic on the Pont-Neuf (from a fan) g7 

Pont-Neuf and the Samaritaine 99 

Notre-Dame ........... 102 

Pont de VEstacade .......... 105 

Pont Marie ........... 108 

Sacking of the Archeveche u 4 

Rue aux Fives in 1845 . . . . . . . . . n«> 

Rue Chanoincsse . . . . . . . , , .117 

Port aux Pomtnes ........ 120 

Cour du Mai .......... 123 

Entrance Gate of the Conciergerie under the Revolution . . . 124 

Conciergerie and Pont d'Arcole I2 6 

Plan of the Conciergerie ......... 120 

Gate of the Depot de la Prefecture de Police 136 

" Bed of Justice" held 12th September, 1715 i 4 o 

Document relating to the "Prompt Trial" of Marie-Antoinette 

(facsimile) ......... i 4 ? 

Marie-Antoinette before the Revolutionary Tribunal . . .145 

The Paris Metropolitain under Construction 148 



LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS ix 



PAGE 



Surface Works of the Metropolitan ; Ventilation Tubes, etc. . . 151 

Tour dc VHorloge and Round Towers of Conciergcrie . . . 153 

Portrait of Latude .......... 157 

Execution of Gontaut-Biron (from a contemporary print) . . . 158 

•• Id Ton danse" .......... 160 

The Bastille 163 

The Gardens of Beaumarchais ........ 166 

Place Royalc — Place des Vosgcs (from an old print) . . . 171 

The lists of the Tournclles ........ 173 

Entrance to Victor Hugo's House in the Place des Vosges . . 176 

Place Roy ale — Place des Vosges . . . . . . . 179 

Hotel dc Sens ........... 184 

Courtyard of the Hotel de Sens (about 1867) 187 

Execution of Mme. de Brinvilliers (from a broadside of the period) . 190 

Impasse Villehardouin, in igo6 . . . . . . . . 194 

General Malet 195 

Autograph of General Malet 197 

Hotel dc Ville, on 9 Thermidor ....... 207 

Hotel de Ville, in 1830 ......... 209 

The Charniers (Mortuary Chapels) of the Church of Saint-Gervais . 213 

Rue Grenier-sur-l'Eau ......... 214 

Rue G eoffroy-V Asnier 215 

Saint-Merri . • . . . . . . . . . . 219 

Rue Taille-Pain, in 1906 .......... 222 

Rue de Venise 223 

Rue Quincampoix, in the year 1720 (Law's Mississippi Scheme) . 226 

Tour Saint-Jacques .......... 229 

Assassination of Henri IV. and Execution of Ravaillac (from a con- 
temporary broadside) ......... 232 

Archway connecting the Rue de la Ferronncrie with the Place des 

Innocents ........... 235 

The old Bureau des Ling'eres, Rue Courtalon, (now demolished), 

former Entrance Gateway 236 



x WALKS IN PARIS 

PAGE 

Fontaine des Innocents ......... 240 

Cour du Heaunie .......... 245 

Pointe Saint-Eustache, looking up the Rue Turbigo, in 1906 . . 246 

Rue Pirouette, in 1875 ......... 255 

Cloitre Saint-Honore .......... 259 

Rue des Bons- En/ants — Passage opening on the Cour des Fontaines 261 

Alexandre Dumas (pere) . ........ 264 

Rue de Clery and Rue Beauregard ....... 268 

Corner of the Rue de Clery (Lepere) ....... 269 

Porte Saint Martin .......... 274 

Massenet, in 1864 279 

Street Musicians under the Directory ...... 283 

Fieschi's Bomb, 28th July, 1835 287 

De Lallot haranguing the Troops, 12 Vendemiaire, An IV . . 294 

Bonaparte, 12 Vendemiaire, An IV 297 

Artillery encamped in the Place de la Bourse ..... 299 

The Bourse 300 

Statue of Louis XIV. (Girardon) 305 

Statue of Napoleon I. surmounting the Colonne Vendbme . . 310 
Ruins of the Colonne Vendbme, May, 1871 . . . . .312 

Place de la Concorde . . . . . . . . . .316 

Execution of Louis XVI ......... 321 

Danton ............ 322 

The Terraces of the Tuileries and the Pont Toumant, about 1788 . 323 



LIST OF MAPS AND PLANS 

PAGE 

Round the Pantheon — From Plan of the Quartier Saiut-Benoit, by 

Jaillot, 1774 14 

The Passage du Commerce — From Plan of Paris by Quar tiers, of 

1839 27 

The Rue Visconti — From Plan of the Quartier Saint-Germain-des- 

Pres, by Jaillot, 1774 41 

Round the Place Maubert — From Plan of Paris, known as Turgot's, 

of 1739 75 

Notre-Dame and the Cite — Portion of the " Plan de tapisserie," 

executed in the XVIth Century . . . . . . m 

The Place de la Bastille — From Plan of the Quartier Saint- Antoine, 

by Jaillot, 1774 165 

Hotel de Sens, Saint Paul — From Plan of the Quartier Saint-Paul, 

by Jaillot, 1774 185 

The Boulevard du Temple — From Plan included in " Theatres du 

Boulevard du Crime" by Henri Beaulieu ..... 281 

The Bourse, Rue Vivienne — From Plan of Paris, known as Turgot's, 

of 1739: The Quartier Vivienne and the Place des Victoires . 291 

The Place Vendome — From Plan of the Quartier du Palais-Royal, 

by Jaillot, 1774 307 



* 



WALKS IN PARIS 

THE LEFT BANK 
ROUND ABOUT THE PANTHEON 

ONE of the greatest griefs of our Parisiennes has 
always been not to know Paris. Hence a hundred 
pretty regrets and dainty lamentations — " Ah ! how I 
should love to see the Bievre. . . . There are still, it 
appears, amazingly fine old houses in the Marais P . . . 
Now, what is the Rue Geoff roy I'Asmer like ? . . . and 
the Hotel Scipion ? Really it breaks my heart to be so 
ignorant ; but how can I help it — what with paying calls 
and seeing dressmakers and milliners, what with Ritz and 
Rumpel . . . and then my afternoon ? " The result is 
generally a firm resolve, the first spring morning come, 
to mount one of Cook's brakes and visit the lions of Paris 
like any ordinary tourist. 

I was thinking of all these charming creatures and 
their unsatisfied curiosity one warm April day when Paris 
lay softly bathed in a sort of blue-grey haze, as I 
watched a band of English visitors making ready to 
invade the Pantheon. The showman who acted as guide 
hurriedly muttered a few explanatory words — " Soufflot 
. . . 1 79 1 . . . Voltaire . . . Marat . . . Victor Hugo" 
. . ., then the dishevelled band plunged into the solemn 



2 WALKS IN PARIS 

silence of the interior. I could not help thinking how 
amusing it would be to take the fellow's place, where he 
stood stringing together commonplaces, and do the honours 
properly and pleasantly of these old quarters of the city, 
so full of memories, to my fascinating Parisian friends who 
complained so feelingly of knowing nothing of the history 
of the beautiful city of which the)' are the greatest charm ! 
Carefully avoiding the too hackneyed legend of the 
Pantheon — Clovis, St. Genevieve, the Norman invasion, 



&• 






=?* 



BILLET 

POUR LA CtRtMONIE 
DE LA PREMIERE PIERRE 

DE LA NOVVELLE EGL1SE 

DE SAINTE GENEVIEVE- 



Pour Une Perfonne. 
EntrtT par / 6n4ta^^/ y ' pngZcpaM-Jfy ol^m 



Ticket of Admission to the Ceremony of Laying the First Stone of the 
New Church of Sainte-Genevieve 



the ruined Abbey, burnt down and again rebuilt by the 
worshippers of the Saint, the monks conspiring for the 
Ligue, — one would tell them in three words about Louis 
XV. lying sick unto death at Metz, and vowing in his 
terror to re-edify the ancient church dedicated to the 
Patron Saint of Paris, then in 1755 assigning to the works 
of reconstruction a portion of the money coming from the 
three lotteries that were drawn month by month. 



ROUND ABOUT THE PANTHEON 3 

Soufflot's plans are adopted, the hill-top is covered 
with scaffolding, and the Parisians wax enthusiastic over 
the proud and monumental edifice that alters the ancient 
skyline of their city. But presently settlements occur and 
cracks open, and admiration is exchanged for foolish 
panic. Sinister rumours circulate — " The building is going 
to collapse, carrying with it in its ruin the whole of the 
old quarter of the Sorbonne ! " Quite needless all this 
alarm; the walls are propped, cavities are filled in, and 
Paris breathes again. But the unfortunate Soufflot is 
broken-hearted and dies of vexation in 178 1 , leaving his 
great work still unfinished. This does not prevent the 
Constituent Assembly from secularising the church, and in 
1 79 1 reconsecrating it to the cult of the great men of 
France. "This Basilica," writes Camille Desmoulins, 
" is destined to unite all mankind in the Religion of 
Humanity ! " 

The decree was passed immediately after the death of 
Mirabeau, and on 4th April Paris gave the great Tribune 
a superb funeral. 1 Four hundred thousand people at- 
tended, and on this occasion were used for the first time 
two novel instruments, the trombone and the tomtom. 
" Their notes, so loud and staccato, seemed to tear the 

1 " Never were obsequies more impressive. All Paris was afoot, and 
if all its inhabitants did not follow the funeral of the illustrious orator, 
it was because, in order to see it go by, it was needful not to take part 
in it, though indeed numbers of people, after watching it file by, them- 
selves joined the endless procession to the tomb. The Constituent As- 
sembly in a body, all the authorities and functionaries, the democratic 
societies, the great officials of the Court, the National Guard and 
thousands of citizens, all marched confounded in one common sorrow, 
for all had cherished high hopes of this marvellous man for whom the 
Pantheon seemed the only worthy burial place.'* — Memoir es du Baron 
Thiebault, vol. i., pp. 278, 279. 



4 WALKS IN PARIS 

entrails and break the hearts of those who heard them," 
says a contemporary writer. 1 By the light of funeral 
torches, amid groans and lamentations, the vast cortege 
reached the " French Pantheon " — such was the new name 
of the edifice. Mirabeau was the first of all the great men 
interred there, yet his lease was but a short one. Less 
than three years afterwards, acting on a report by Joseph 
Chenier, the Convention, " deeming that there is no great 
man without virtue, decrees that the body of JVJirabeau 
shall be removed from the Pantheon and Marat's trans- 
ferred there". The sentence was carried out pitilessly 
and coldly during the night, and what remains of Mira- 
beau lies in some obscure corner of the tragic cemetery of 
Clamart, where the bodies of those who perished in the 
September massacres were tossed pell-mell. 

Marat, his virtuous supplanter, had his turn of glori- 
ficat on. David himself designed the triumphal car which 
bore his friend's corpse to the Pantheon. The body was 
so terribly decomposed that the face had to be made pre- 
sentable with paint and rouge. For it was the actual 
body of the popular Tribune which Paris saw carried by, 
covered with blood-stained linen, an arm <l holding an 
iron pen," hanging outside the coffin. A howling crowd 
followed, w r eeping the death of their " divine hero ". Three 
months more and the aforesaid Marat was " depantheon- 
ised " in his turn, and thrown probably into the fosse 
commune in the little cemetery attached to Saint-Etienne- 
du-Mont. 

Voltaire and Rousseau likewise received the honours of 
posthumous triumph. The body of Voltaire, brought to 
Paris from the Abbey of Scellieres, passed the night of I ith 

1 Memoires du Baron Thiebault, vol. i., p. 279. 



— 



ROUND ABOUT THE PANTHEON 5 

July, 1 79 1, on the spot where the demolished Bastille had 
stood. 

Next morning, at eight o'clock, a car of monumental 
proportions, drawn by twelve horses, moved off for the 
Pantheon. It was surmounted by a sarcophagus of Oriental 
granite, bearing a figure of Voltaire in a half-reclining 
posture as if asleep. He was clad in a purple robe, and a 
young girl was laying a crown of golden stars about his 
brow. All Paris lined the streets as the procession went 
by. The route comprised the Boulevards, the Rue Royale, 
the Place Louis XV., the Quais and then up the Rue 
Saiut-J acqucs. The first halt was made in front of the 
Opera (on the site of the present theatre of the Porte- 
Saint- Martin), where hymns were chanted ; the second on 
the Quai des Thiatins (now the Quai Voltaire), in front 
of the house of M. de Villette, where the great man died. 

There a band of fifty young girls, wearing classical 
costumes designed by David, surrounded the funeral car, 
over which fluttered the torn flag of the Bastille ; they 
were joined presently by the widow and daughters of the 
unhappy Calas and the artistes of the Comedie Francaise, 
in theatrical dress. Children walked in front of the 
cortege, strewing roses before the horses' feet. It was 
all admirably arranged, and everything had been provided 
for— except the weather. Suddenly a terrific storm broke 
over Paris. Orosm.ane made haste to shelter Merope and 
Jocaste beneath an umbrella ; Brutus, Lusignan, Zaire and 
Nanine scuttled into a hackney-coach ; the fifty virgins, 
bespattered with mud to the waist, tucked their peplums 
under their arms, and tying pocket-handkerchiefs round 
their throats, draggled on through the mud under a per- 
fect deluge of rain. The colours began to run and the 



6 WALKS IN PARIS 

figure of the dead hero to look more and more lamentable 
every moment ; the Roman Senators' togas hung limp and 
wretched under the downpour, which obstinately refused 
to stop. It was under these discouraging circumstances 
that Voltaire, 12th July, 1 791, entered the Pantheon ! 

Rousseau followed him thither three years later to the 
pleasing strains of the Devin de Village, and his triumph 
was equally superb. 

The inhabitants of Ermenonville had conveyed the 
body to Paris to the accompaniment of " simple, naive 
music " — " the chosen airs of the man of nature, such as 
day by day the lover sings over to his mistress, the tender 
wife to her happy mate. Presently the procession reaches 
the great Bason in the Tuileries gardens, which represented 
the Isle of Poplars, and there he received the tribute of 
the spectators' tears." 1 The coffin remained there for the 
night, continuing its progress next day for the Temple 
of Great Men. It was escorted by Deputies of Sections, 
artistes from the theatres, mothers, "clad in antique 
fashion and holding tender infants by the hand," peasants 
from the country, a deputation of citizens of Geneva, the 
statue of Liberty, and to wind up, "a group of members 
of the National Convention, encircled by a tricolour riband 
and preceded by the Lighthouse of Legislators". This 
noble spectacle stirred the '' poetic spirit and sensibility " of 
the Citoyen Olivier Corancez so strongly that he im- 
provised on the spot, as the cortege passed, a touching 
piece of verse which was acclaimed by all. It ended : — 

Par tes lemons, mes enfants ont un pere, 
Et moi, pere, j'ai des enfants ! 2 

1 Mercier, Tableaux de Pen is. 

2 " By your teachings my infants have a father, and I, their father, have 
children ! " 



ROUND ABOUT THE PANTHEON 7 

The obsequies were concluded by the singing of 
" Dans ma cabane obscure," and each man as he went 
home could be heard still humming the air with evident 
emotion. 

Then, after dealing with the history of the building, 
how pleasant it would be to tell the fair audience of some 
of the many events, heroic or calamitous, that have hap- 
pened beneath its shadow, — to say, for instance : " Here on 
this identical spot, just where we stand at this moment, at 
the upper end of the Rue Valette — then known as the Rue 
des Sept-Voies — it was that, on 9th March, 1804, at seven 
in the evening, Georges Cadoudal, disguised as a market 
porter, emerged from the dark corner where he had been 
lurking, and leapt into the cabriolet No. 53". Leridant, 
his accomplice, sat on the box, who had been waiting for 
him at the corner of the Rue des Sept- Voies, between the 
railings of the Pantheon builders' sheds and the old walls 
of the College Montaigu. For a month or more the wily 
conspirator, Bonaparte's daring adversary, had been in 
hiding, lodging at a fruiterer's in the Montagne-Sainte- 
Genevieve. But at last the game was scented ; tracked 
down by all the police of Paris, Georges felt the meshes 
of the net spread by Real for his capture closing in about 
his place of concealment. At all hazards he must fly 
and make for the refuge prepared in case of final emer- 
gency in the Rue du Four- Saint-Germain, at Caron's the 
royalist perfumer's. Just as Georges put his foot on the 
step, three police officers, who had been waiting in am- 
bush, flung themselves upon him and tried to seize him — 
in vain. Two friends dash to the rescue and Georges 
throws them off. ..." Whip up, Leridant, drive like 
fury ! " and the horse darts like an arrow down the Rue 



8 



WALKS IN PARIS 



Saint- Etienne-des-Grecs : But a policeman, Caniolle by 
name, has still to be reckoned with ; hanging on to the 
springs behind, he is whirled away in this wild, midnight 
race, amid shouting of men and cracking of whips. At 




Rue Saint-Etienne-des-Grecs 



the turning of the Rue de I' Observance, close to the 
Odeon, Georges springs out, meaning to escape by darting 
down one of the little tortuous streets near the Ecole de 
Medecine. Caniolle pounces on him ; another officer 
comes to the rescue ; Georges stretches them on the 
pavement with a brace of pistol shots, but he is seized 



io WALKS IN PARIS 

himself, secured, and lodged in prison — soon to meet his 
fate on the scaffold. 

A few steps under the towering walls of the Pantheon 
— which an excellent lithograph by Raffet l shows us on 
the night of 22nd December, 1830, reflecting the blazing 
bivouac fires kindled by the troops fraternizing with the 
people — and we shall see before us the narrow open- 
ing of the steeply descending Montagne-Sainte-Genevilve, 
with its dull row of gloomy looking houses, hump-backed, 
tumble-down, where sheltering beneath the wide porches 
of ancient hotels of the nobility a score of humble in- 
dustries are carried on. 

Behind us is the charming western facade of Saint- 
Etienne-du-Mont There it was that, on 3rd January, 
1857, at three o'clock in the afternoon, the first day of the 
neuvaine (or nine days' festival) of St. Genevieve, horrid 
cries were suddenly heard : " Monseigneur has been as- 
sassinated ! " 2 A moment more and the public were seen 
dragging out into the Place a man with an ashen face, 
dressed in black, his hands red with blood. It was Verger, 
a disfrocked priest, who had just planted his knife in the 

1 Imp. lithog. de Gihaut freres, Editeurs (Album de 1831). 

2 Three Archbishops of Paris met with violent deaths within a space 
of twenty-three years. 

Monseigneur Afifre was shot during the Revolution of 1848, while 
exhorting the rival factions to make peace from the top of the barricade 
in the Place de 1' Hotel de Ville, 25th June, 1848. 

Monseigneur Sibour was stabbed on the altar-steps at Saint-Etienne- 
du-Mont by a fanatical priest, 3rd January, 1857. 

Monseigneur Darboy was shot in cold blood, with other prisoners, 
in the prison of La Roquette, where he was detained as a hostage by the 
Communards, 24th May, 1871. 

The blood-stained clothes and other mementoes of all three are pre- 
served in the sacristy of Notre-Dame. [Transl.] 



ROUND ABOUT THK PANTHfiON 



1 1 



heart of Monseigneur Sibour, Archbishop of Paris. By 
some strange presentiment the Archbishop had that very 
morning deposited his will in the hands of the Abbe 
Cutolli, his private secretary. At his trial Verger's be- 




Ruc de la Montagne-Sainte-Genevieve 

haviour was that of a madman. One plea out of a score 
in the course of his rambling defence will suffice. 
" Madame's deposition," he objected to one witness, the 
woman who let out chairs in the church and who gave evi- 
dence for the prosecution, " is null and void. It is expressly 



ROUND ABOUT THE PANTHEON 13 

forbidden by the Doctrine of Our Saviour Jesus Christ to 
take money in churches ; "now I paid Madame ten cen- 




Fair of the Neuvaine-Sainte-Genevieve 
times to enter the nave. It is simony; I trust Madame 




Round the Pantheon— From Plan of the Quartier Saint-Bcnoit, by Jaillot, 1774 




>s 



c*>y^' 



D^w» 



\fc**X-> 






VI 




^Qs^ 








J 












Round the Pantheon — From Plan of the Quartier Saint-Bsnoit, by Jaillot, 1774 








U 



16 WALKS IN PARIS 

will remember this, and it will be for the good of her 
soul ! " 1 

Now let us enter the church which saw this odious 
crime committed ; let us admire the strikingly elegant/z/^?, 2 
erected by Biard in 1609, and gaze reverently on the shrine 
containing what is left of the relics of St. Genevieve, which 
were burnt during the Revolution in the Place de Greve. 
The Deputy Fayau by-the-by had the delicate thought- 
fulness to send to the Pope the official report of the 
pleasing ceremony. Then we should visit the little 
cloister of the sixteenth century, adjoining the church, 
lighted by marvellous painted windows, masterpieces of 
Pinaigrier. Finally leaving by the door in the Rue Clovis 
and keeping along the Gothic facade of the old-time 
refectory of the monks of St. Genevieve, which under 
the Revolution was used as a democratic club, where 
Babceuf preached his political gospel, we reach the Rue 
d Ulm. A plaque of black marble records the fact that 
here, in a miserable lodging transformed into a laboratory, 
the great Pasteur began his immortal investigations. 

But we must not quit this old-world quartier Latin 
without making a detour by the Rue Lhomond to visit 
one of the least known of the old houses of Paris. The 
exterior is grey and uninviting-looking, and more likely 
to repel than to attract visitors. Nevertheless, ring the 
bell — it is No. 27 ; a key grates in the lock, the heavy 
door rolls back on its hinges, and a gentle, smiling 

1 Les Causes Celebres : " Proces Verger ". 

'-'The most striking feature of the church of Saint-Etienne-du-Mont 
is perhaps the exquisite Renaissance jube, or rood-loft, dividing nave and 
choir, round the pillars of which two graceful spiral staircases ascend, 
giving a highly original aspect to the interior. It was erected in 1609 
the church itself, except the classical West Front of 1620, dating from 
the early sixteenth century; the choir was begun in 1517. [Transl.] 



ROUND ABOUT THE PANTHEON i; 

face appears in the opening. It is a Sister in a little 
pleated nun's cap. Then you enter by a vaulted entrance 
passage leading to a small paved and moss-grown courtyard. 
You turn round and look up, and you are in fairyland. A 
miracle of carved stone rises before your eye, a very gem 
of seventeenth-century art, the Hotel Sainte-Aure. 1 

The Dubarry has leant her white hands on the lovely 
wrought-iron balustrade of that exquisite balcony, for she 
lived for a time in her first youth — quite against her will, 
be it said, and by order of the authorities — in this charm- 
ing and peaceful abode where pious women now spend a 
life of prayer and good works. They go on quietly with 
their customary tasks, moving noiselessly to and fro with 
little discreet steps and seem utterly undisturbed by the 
presence of the dreamer who is there to fill his eyes with 
the fascinating picture. " No doubt it is a gentleman in- 
terested in architecture," murmurs the Sister Superior. 

How remote it all seems from Paris ! What an abode 
of infinite calm and rest ! Convent bells ring softly, the 
ear catching a faint echo dulled by distance, the notes of 
chimes filter down through the air, children's laughter 
makes itself heard . . . while the Pantheon projects its 
huge grey outline with imposing effect against the rosy 
clouds of sunset. 

The dusk descends, dropping its soft, vague, elusive 
shadows over the dream-like scene. It is the witching 
hour for calling up tender associations. . . . 

Surely our pretty Parisiennes were right, it is indeed 
a thousands pities not to know Paris ! 

1 At the present time it is a lay institution, but the reception accorded 
visitors by the ladies who direct the establishment remains as gracious as 
ever it was. 

2 



THE PASSAGE DU COMMERCE 

THE COUR DE ROUEN— THE INN OF THE CHEVAL-BLANC 

IN 1875 the whole quarter of the Ecole-de-Medecine was 
in process of reconstruction. The formation of the 
new Boulevard Saint- Germain involved the destruction of 
hundreds of old houses and swept out of existence a per- 
fect labyrinth of little streets that had once been famous 
in the heroic days of the Great Revolution — the Rue des 
Cordeliers, the Rue du Paon, the Rue des Fosses-Saint- 
Germain, the Rue du Jardinet, and a part of the Passage 
du Commerce. 

We started away in high spirits from the Ecole des 
Beaux- Arts, Dagnan, Francois Flameng, one or two other 
friends and myself, to take a last look at these time- 
honoured walls so soon to vanish under the navvies' picks. 
The ruin of such scenes of past events connected with the 
great and terrible days of popular revolt cannot fail to 
rouse a certain stirring of the heart in the onlooker. 

So it was here, in these narrow, crooked, dark, evil- 
smelling lanes, that the mighty men lived whose energy 
and audacity and stubborn determination revolutionised 
the old world ! Each of these unpretending houses had 
its aureole of memories ; I cannot even now walk along 
the Boulevard Saint-Germain past the statue of Danton 
without thinking of the vast arched gateway which used 

to stand there, forming the entrance to the Passage du 

18 



THE PASSAGE DU COMMERCK 



19 



Commerce and once leading to the dwelling of the great 
Conventionnel. 

Our master Victorien Sardou, that passionate lover 
of Paris, lived for many years in this district, and under 
his magic words the dead bones live, the old associations 
grow vivid and precise. " There, look, exactly on the 




Rue des Cordeliers 

spot where the third cab is standing on that rank, was the 
door of Marat's house, No. 20, in the Rue des Cordeliers, 
next to a house with a corner turret. Danton, his near 
neighbo ur, used to call for him there to go fifty yards farther 
up the street, to the Club des Cordeliers " — on the site now 



20 



WALKS IN PARIS 



occupied by the Ecole Pratique de Chirurgie and the 
Musee Dupuytren. Marat would be slow in appearing, 




Ancient Streets destroyed by the formation of the Boulevard Saint-Germain 

and Danton, to make him hurry, would shout his name 



THE PASSAGE DU COMMERCE 2] 

in his powerful voice and rap with his key upon the iron 
rail of the stairs. The same stairs which Charlotte Corday 
climbed on 13th July, 1793, at seven in the evening, 
"dressed in a loose sprigged gown and wearing a tall- 
crowned hat with a black cockade and three green cords,'' 
before pulling the iron chain which served as bell-rope 
at Marat's own door! These walls re-echoed the shouts 
of "Murder, murder! the 'People's Friend' has been 
murdered!" raised by Simonne Everard and the com- 
missionaire Laurent Bas. 1 Then Sardou tells us, my 
good friend Lenotre and me, all about his visit to the 
Docteur Galtier who in 1854 occupied Marat's rooms, still 
quite unaltered at that date. He describes the Utile 
closet, ten feet by six and a half, where the copper sabot 
stood in which the popular pamphleteer used to take his 
medicated baths. Even the figured wall-paper was there 
intact, representing " twisted columns upon a whitey-grey 
background," covering the wall facing the narrow window, 
to the left of the bath. At the very place where Charlotte 
Corday sat, Sardou had found himself able to reconstitute 
each momentary incident of the tragic interview, and re- 
peat on the identical spot the fatal blow of vengeance. 

What memories again cling to the corner overshadowed 
by the statue of Danton facing the old house, No. S/ } of 
the Boulevard Saint-Germain, where the Citoyenne Simon 
kept house ! It was there on 31st March, 1793 — at early 
dawn, six o'clock in the morning — the musket-butts of 
the sectionaries rang on the flags ; amidst a scene of panic 

1 The Citoyen Fualdes, " domiciled Rue Honore," was one of the jury- 
men who pronounced judgment at the trial of Charlotte Corday — the same 
who was assassinated under tragic circumstances, 18th May, 1817, in the 
Rue des Hehdomadiers, at Rodez. 




House with corner turret in the Rue des Cordeliers 



THE PASSAGE DU COMMERCE 23 

and shouting and indignant protests, they dared to arrest 
Danton, the Titan of the Revolution, the man of the 10th 
of August ! At the same instant of time in the Place de 
tO dcon, at the corner house of the Rue Crebillon, the 
same fate was overtaking Camille Desmoulins ! " We 
shall very soon gut that stuffed turbo t," Vadier had 
muttered at the Cotnite de Surete (inierale ; and Robes- 
pierre, whose jealous, atrabilious nature had never forgiven 
Camille for his description of him as a "foolish tiresome 
temporiser," any more than he had forgotten Danton's 
threat "to spin him at the end of his thumb like a top," 
had run them both in ! An hour later Camille and Danton 
came face to face at the prison of the Luxembourg, and it 
was at that very moment Camille received the news of 
his mother's death. 

The Passage du Commerce, where the tragedy befell, 
still exists for the greater part of its length. Thither we 
propose to-day to take any of our Parisian fellow-citizens 
who seem likely to be ill-acquainted with this ancient and 
highly picturesque district. 

Newsvendors, fruiterers, bookbinders, dealers in all kinds 
and descriptions of second-hand oddments, come first ; 
further on, at No. 9, stands Durel's strange, old-world 
book-shop, where, in 1790, Guillotin l made experiments 
on sheep with the cutting blade of his newly invented 
"philanthropic machine for beheading". Over the way, 
at No. 8, the widow of Brissot installed in 1794 a reading- 

1 Dr. Joseph Ignace Guillotin invented, or at any rate, perfected, the 
guillotine; he was actuated by philanthropic motives, his object being to 
enable capital punishment to be inflicted with the minimum of pain. It 
was not officially sanctioned till April, 1792, in France. [Transl.] 



24 



WALKS IX PARIS 



room with the decapitated Girondist's books of jurisprud- 
ence. There she lived with her child under surveillance 
of an officer of the law ; but presently the " suspect" and 
her guard grew reconciled to each other's society, and on 
Sundays the gendarme dressed in mufti and giving an 

accommodating arm to 
the Citoyenne Brissot 
would take the con- 
demned man's son to 
trundle his hoop in the 
far din - Egalite. In 
the adjoining shop, a 
foreman printer, des- 
tined one day to be 
Napoleon's Marechal 
Brune, superintended 
the press where the 
Ami du Peuple was 
produced, while Marat 
himself, in a dressing- 
gown "turned back 
with imitation panther 
skin," used to come to 
read the proofs of his 
sanguinary journal. 
At No. 4 a lock- 
smith has installed his forge and fires in the basement 
of a tower dating back to Philippe-Auguste, for just here 
went the old line of the walls of Paris. Bicycle wheels, 
bunches of keys, broken bells and iron gates to be mended 
litter the old stones which the King of France used to 
surround his capital with a rampart of defence, while 




Passage du Commerce 



THE PASSAGE DU COMMERCE 25 

each blast of the bellows throws broacL ruddy gleams 
over the weird scene. 

About halfway along the Passage a tortuous alley 
branches off, leading to the Cour de Rouen — not Rchan ; 
it formed part originally of the old Paris mansion of the 
Archbishops of Rouen. 

A (exv years ago the dingy stones were half-hidden by 
flowers and foliage; over the top of a low wall bounding 
the gardens, on a higher level, of a neighbouring boarding- 
school, fell clusters of lilac and branches of pink and white 
chestnuts, making a delightful bit. Alas ! a wretched 
photographer's studio has been put up, utterly destroying 
the rare picturesqueness of this quaint corner of old Paris ! 

Old mansions of the sixteenth and seventeenth cen- 
turies lean against each other for mutual support, dilapi- 
dated, shabby, weather-stained, yet brightened by little 
window gardens on almost every floor. A sickly fig 
straggles along a water-pipe, strings are stretched here 
and there up which climb convolvulus and bind-weed and 
clematis ; in the window corners hang caged birds, and 
below bloom patches of mignonette and pansies. The 
very lofts are gay with flowers, irises grow in the corners of 
walls, the grass is green round the ancient "mounting- 
block " once used for getting on and off their nags by the 
grave doctors of the Sorbonne who made their abode in 
this district. An old well, Coictier's Well — the Cour de 
Rouen is built on the site formerly occupied on the city 
wall by the garden of Louis XL's famous physician — ■ 
supplies water for these horticultural efforts of the humble 
Parisian households which have succeeded the high-born 
proprietors of former days. 

Queer notices are to be seen stuck up. " Office of 



26 



WALKS IN PARIS 



the del (Heaven) newspaper on the fourth flight" might 
be read, and next it the eminently Parisian announce- 




Cour de Rouen (Rohan) 

ment : " Little hands wanted for flowers and feathers,' 
which reads somehow curiously poetical. 




Passage du Coma;, by Quay 



WALKS IN PARIS 

S7 



fper arrKtnb fourth /fligh/' 
eminently Parisian ^ii 



might 
n ounce- 




nt: "Little hands wanted for flowers and feathers, 
h reads somehow curiously poetical. 




Passage du Commerce— From Plan of Paris by Q u artier s, of 1839 



28 WALKS IN PARIS 

At the hour of dejeuner work-girls hurry along, push- 
ing and crowding, their tangled hair gleaming with bits 
of tinsel, pink rose petals or silk network. Or else the 
school for little girls is just coming out ; the merry throng 
darts past, copy-books and satchels under their arms ; 
there is a pretty hurly-burly of shouts and laughter, then 
the charming troop, after clearing the handcart on which 
a white-capped peasant woman has piled a load of golden 
gilliflowers, yellow mimosas, violets and pink hyacinths, 
scatters in all directions, leaving behind a scent of 
flowers. 

It is a waft of springtide come to perfume these old 
dark stones, blackened by the storms of so many winters ! 

Now leaving the Passage du Commerce by the Rue 
Saint- Andre-des- Arts we find ourselves facing the Rue 
Mazet — formerly called the Rue Contrescarpe — the warlike 
name being accounted for by the neighbourhood of the 
old walls of Philippe- Auguste. There stood in old days 
the Porte Buci, which was betrayed to the Burgundians 
by Perrinet-Leclerc. Here in the Rue Mazet were held, 
at Magny's well-known restaurant (the house was pulled 
down some years ago and rebuilt) the famous dinners 
whereof Edmund de Goncourt has constituted himself 
the historiographer, and which included Sainte-Beuve, 
Ernest Renan, Gustave Flaubert, Gavarni, Theophile 
Gautier, and so on. 

We will call a halt at No. 5, before the high-arched 
gateway, vaulted and painted a blood-red, which gives 
access to the Cheval- Blanc. 

Here, in 1652, under Louis XIV., was the bureau of 
the Orleans and Blois coaches. Every morning, at six 
o'clock in summer, and ten in winter, the public convey- 



THE PASSAGE DU COMMERCE 



29 



ances, which reached Orleans in two days (by way of 
Linas, Arpajon, Etampes and Toury), started from this 
vast courtyard, crowded with travellers, porters, friends 
and acquaintances, servant- women, parcels, package s 
and trunks. Amidst cracking of whips, blowing of horns, 
shouts and farewells and waving handkerchiefs, the pon- 
derous vehicle would get under way in a huge cloud of 




Courtyard of the Cheval-Blanc 

dust. Postillions swearing, dogs barking, women crying 
— here were concentrated the excitement of departure, 
the joy of returning, the pathos of farewell — a very 
microcosm of human life! 

Now this life is fallen dead, but the surroundings are 
still the same, and are striking enough. The ancient inn 
falling to ruin, the old-fashioned courtyard where the 



30 WALKS IN PARIS 

grass grows between the stones, are just as they were in 
the days when d'Artagnan, as Dumas tells us in his happy 
way, alighted there (or would have alighted, if he had 
really lived), arriving from Meung on his yellow horse ! 
It is now what it always was; stables and coach-houses 
are there still. 

A score or so of horses munch their hay, tied to the 
posts of pent-houses that date from the Grand Monarque, 
or under the smoke-begrimed beams sheltering the 
mangers of an older time. Market carts are ranged in 
convenient corners, fowls peck at the rich manure heaps, 
lean cats bask in the sun beside the great iron-bound stone 
posts, chipped and battered by the thousands of knocks 
and shocks they have endured in the course of three 
hundred years ! 

From this courtyard, once so full of life and stir, 
travellers departed for long and distant journeys ; the 
only destination you can book for nowadays is the Land 
of Dreams ! Yes, it is one of the charms of Paris for lovers 
of the Past to find here and there such old corners as this, 
left almost intact amid modern improvements — spots where 
they can call up the visions of olden times they love so well ! 



THE RUE VISCONTI 

BETTER perhaps than dusty chronicles the old streets 
of Paris tell the history of the Past to such as know 
how to question them. Amongst the richest in old as- 
sociations should be reckoned surely the Rue Visconti. 1 
Almost opposite the Ecole des Beaux-Arts, it connects the 
Rue Bonaparte with the Rue de Seine. Down to 1864 it 
was called the Rue des Marais-Saint-Germain, and origin- 
ally the site formed part of the Preaux C/ercs, the rendez- 
vous of all the King's minions and Court exquisites who 
resorted there to cut each other's throats gallantly and 
gaily in the heroic times celebrated by Merimee in his 
Chronique du rlgne de Charles IX., and set to music by 
Herold :— 

Les rendez-vous de noble compagnie 

Se donnent tous en ce charmant sejour. . . .- 

At a later date the Pre aux C/ercs s was abandoned to 
neglect, and became a general receptacle of town rubbish. 
Alienated by the University of Paris which owned the 

1 Some famous vineyards flourished there. One of these, belonging to 
the Abbey of Saint-Germain, extended from the Petit- Pont all the way to 
the Rue Bonaparte. The river banks were covered with fishermen's huts 
and stalls for the sale of fresh fish. 

2 Le Preaux Cleres, act I. : '• The meetings of noble company are all 
held in this charming resort." 

3 The ancient Pre Aux Cleres occupied the ground now covered by the 
Rue de Seine, Rue Jacob and Rue Bonaparte. 

31 



32 WALKS IN PARIS 

land, it was divided up and built over with little houses 
and gardens. It was a rough, lonely, "shy" neighbour- 
hood ; the persecuted Protestants established themselves 
there, and in 1660, the date of the Conjuration of Amboise, 
the Rue des Marais with good reason acquired the 
nickname of " the Little Geneva , \ 1 The poet — and noble 
— Nicolas des Yveteaux built himself a choice retreat 
surrounded by flowers and vines and greenery. " There 
he lived," writes Tallemant des Reaux, " like a sort of 
Grand Turk in his Seraglio." 

The old street still exists, a dark, damp, miry alley, 
so narrow that the scavengers " do " it with one sweep of 
their broom. It has all the look of some back lane in a 
country town where there is barely room for a vehicle to- 
pass. Yet there are several fine old houses still standing, 
like the curious Hotel de La Rochefoucauld, No. 14, and 
the house where Haro lived, the learned expert visited by 
Ingres and Delacroix, 2 while five or six balconies of 
wrought-iron show their bold rounded contours above 
deeply recessed doorways of seventeenth-century date. 
. . . But it is mainly coal-dealers and letters of furnished 
rooms and cook-shop keepers, selling blanquette de Limoux 
(cheap white wine) at 10 centimes the glass, who have 
made it their chosen residence. 

It was not so always. At No. 19, a house of noble 

1 In 1559 the Huguenots held their first National Synod in the Rue 
des Marais, and the Lieutenant Criminel raided a house for " non-observ- 
ance of Friday". 

2 M. de Rochegude further mentions, in his Guide pratique a travers le 
Vieux Paris, No. 23, where the President Langlois lived in the eighteenth 
century, Nos. 15 and 13, occupied during the same century by the Filles 
de la Visitation Sainte-Marie, facing across the way the old Hotels Saint- 
Simon and de Louvencourl. 



THE RUE VISCONTI 



33 



proportions, may be read this inscription: "Hotel de 
Ranes, built on the site of the Petit Pre aux Clercs. Jean 
Racine died here 22nd April, 1699, Adrienne Lecouvreur 
in 1730. Here likewise lived Champmesle and Hippolyte 
Clairon." 




Rue Visconti 

We ring and enter. The concierge apologises most 
politely; no, he cannot give us the required information, 
he is only newly come to the house and never knew " the 
Monsieur Racine the gentlemen are anxious about' 
Finally, the amiable owner, M. Dagoury, is so obliging as 

3 



34 WALKS IN PARIS 

to do the honours of the house where the great Poet came 
to live in 1693, his heart still bleeding from the base im- 
putations of La Voisin accusing him of the death of the 
fair Duparc whom he had loved so tenderly! This in- 
famous charge, the loss of the King's favour, world 
weariness and the "curse of genius," combined to cut 
short the great Dramatist's life. " A priest of the Church 
of Saint- Andre-des-Arts brought him the last sacraments. 
. . . He expired between three and four o'clock in the 
morning, ' the hour when men die,' as it says in the Book 
of Job; his age was fifty-nine and four months." 1 

What remains of this past opulence? The staircase, 
formerly adorned with a railing of wrought-iron, no 
longer exists, and recent alterations, alas ! have destroyed 
the original arrangement of the rooms on the second floor, 
where doubtless the Poet lived with his seven children, the 
first being devoted to the reception rooms. There we 
still find a salon of noble dimensions, some old wood- 
work, and the original blocks of the polished oak floor 
over which glided the satin slippers and red-heeled shoes of 
the pretty women and gentlemen of taste who honoured the 
entertainments of the " divine" Racine with their presence.'- 

Through the windows are caught glimpses of tree-tops 
and behind nearly all these old dreary houses lurk small 
bits of greenery where the blackbirds whistle. 

1 Anatole France, Preface to the Theatre de J. Racine (Edition Le- 
merre). 

2 The rooms were still intact in 1888. Racine kept horses and men- 
servants, and owned more than one coach. In a letter addressed to his 
son, Attache with the Comte de Bonrepaux, the French Ambassador in 
Holland, the Poet begs him to make the Ambassador promise "to lodge 
with him during the short stay he will be making in Paris " (17th Novem- 
ber, 1698). 



THE RUE VISCONTI 35 

Le calme des jardins profonds s'idealise; 
L'ame du soir s'annonce a la tour de l'eglise. 
Ecoute . . . l'heure est bleue et le ciel s'angelise. 1 

Shut in between the Rue Jacob, the Rue de Seine and 
the Rue Bonaparte, other flowery retreats are to be found. 
One of them contains a " Temple of Friendship," touching 




Courtyard of an Old House, now destroyed, in the Rite Visconti 

in its pretty old-world charm, and Mme. Charles Max, 
the great singer, gathers armful s of lilacs from the masses 
of verdure framing in her artistic home in the Rue Jacob. 
. . . They are the remains, now parcelled out among 
many proprietors, of Racine's gardens, the shady plea- 
saunces, the great trees of which mingled their boughs 

1 A. Samain, Promenade a I' E tang (Le Jardin de l'lnfante). 



36 WALKS IN PARIS 

with those of Saint-Germain-des-Pres. Later on they 
sheltered Adrienne Lecouvreur and H. Clairon, these two 
fascinating actresses having succeeded the Poet as occu- 
pants of this mansion so replete with time-honoured 
associations. 

It was from its porte-cochere that, on 2ist March, 1730, 
on a dark, moonless night, two hackney-coaches drove 
out, which, following the line of the quays, came to a stop 
in the purlieus of the Grenonillcre, much about the spot 
where the present Chamber of Deputies stands. A 
manager, M. de Laubiniere, got out of the first vehicle; 
out of the second appeared two street porters carrying a 
strange-looking load. A hole was hurriedly dug in the 
wet earth of a piece of waste land, and the package 
placed in it. It was the body of Adrienne Lecouvreur — 
of the Theatre Francois, — who had died in the arms of the 
Marechal de Saxe of a sudden and mysterious malady. 
" As she had not had time to declare her renunciation 
of the stage, it had proved impossible to obtain a plot of 
ground to bury her in ; " and so the remains of this 
woman, who was so ardently loved, rest to this day in the 
cellars of the Hotel Jouvencel, 115 Rue de Grenelle, under 
the pavement of a coach-house ; as for the mortuary 
slab, it is to be found somewhere in the attics ! 

Eighteen years later, Mile, de Clairon, that " chiffon 
coiffc" (rag doll with a powdered head), took up her abode 
at the Hotel de Ranes. " I was in sore need," she writes 
in her Souvenirs, " of a little peace and quietness for my 
studies and my poor health which was already badly 
shaken. . . . They told me of a little house in the Rue 
des Marais- Saint-Germain, and informed me that Racine 
had dwelt there. . . . Well, that is where I would fain 



THE RUE VISCONTI 37 

live and die." As a matter of fact, she lived there 
eighteen years, received the homage of the Court and 
Society, was the object of universal adoration ; but died 
elsewhere ! 



What memories cling about the old house ! yet teemi 



as it is with associations, it is not the only d 



welling in 




Portrait of Balzac 

the venerable street to rouse our curiosity and respect. 
Just beside it, No* 17 stirs the heart with a still more 






jS 



&?Yr/, ^ 



y<*^> 



[It CIS UiRi'S t. ' Q., ». 17 







X%~^- ^ 2~>* 



"^ a^f^r- £& 




9- 



u^tX ^^y 






***** 




£*€**+• 





Autograph Letter of Balzac 



THE RUE VISCOM I 



39 



poignant emotion. In this house, or rather two houses, 
of unpretending appearance, and whose almost modern 
exterior contrasts oddly with the old buildings all about 
it, the immortal Balzac carried on the trade of printer, — 
and regretted it bitterly all his life. At this present time 
a signboard occupies the long, recessed frontage : " Schooj 




Rue Visconti (after A. Lepere) 



copy-books. Herment, late Gamier, Maker of Account- 
books and Ledgers." Yes, it is a printing-office to this 
day, and the description Balzac gives of it in the first 
volume of his Illusions Perdues is still exact : " The ground- 
floor formed one immense room lighted from the street 
by an old-fashioned shop-window, and from the court- 
yard behind by a large sash-window." M. Herment's 



40 WALKS IN PARIS 

office occupies the room, a square, high-ceilinged apart- 
ment, lighted by a window giving on the Rue Visconti, 
where Balzac lived, and loved with passionate ardour the 
woman whose nature was so divinely sweet and good, 
and whom he always called the " Dilecta," — the Chosen 
One I 

In their admirable study on the Jeunesse de Balzac, 
MM. G. Hanotaux and G. Vicaire have vividly described 
the " Mount of Sorrows" the genial and unworldly Balzac 
had to climb, harassed for money, worn out with work, 
supported under the tempest of calamity solely by the 
tender sympathy of the incomparable mistress to whom 
in utter sincerity he could dedicate his portrait with the 
inscription summing up his love and gratitude : El nunc, 
et semper ! — " Now and always ". 

. . . Beaten in a hopeless struggle, the unhappy man 
liquidated, 26th September, 1828, the printing business, 
which had proved so disastrous, abandoning to his creditors 
the apparatus, etc., he had got together, and signing bills 
to the amount of 40,000 francs, which he had eventually 
to meet, — capital and interest, — out of the profits on his 
books. It was a dead-weight he dragged about with him 
almost to the end of his life ! Two storeys above the 
printing office, a little door leads into a vast, brilliantly 
lighted studio. Paul Delaroche and Eugene Lami once 
occupied it; later on, E. Delacroix painted there, from 
1838 to 1843. There the great artist executed Medee, La 
Justice de Trajan, Les Croiscs a Constantinople, Le Naii- 
frage du Don Juan . . ., a whole series of masterpieces ! 
To-day the amiable Due de Guiche occupies this work- 
room of glorious memories, which he was so obliging 




Rue Visconti. — From I 



offi:e occupies 
ment, lighted^ 
where Balz 




almost 
printing/iS 
ligl 
oca; g£ 

fust '■ 



frag ? du 1 JIM Juan . /ft, - a whole/^sefries^of ra^ 
To-dav the amiable.-TDuc de G 
roo m of gloriou s m e mories, which h e wa 




Rue Visconti. — From Plan of the Quartier Saint-Germain-des-Pres, by 

Jaillot, 1774 



42 WALKS IN PARIS 

as to show us with his customary kindness and cour- 
tesy. 1 

Another, a last memory — of a very different sort — 
hangs about the Rue Visconti ; a regicide lived there! 

On 26th June, 1836, King Louis-Philippe was leaving 
the Louvre, where he had been to inspect some new rooms- 
in the Musee lately opened to the public. He had ex- 
amined with special attention and considerable emotion the 
model in cork of the Boulevard du Temple at the time of 
the murderous attempt made on his life by Fieschi the 
year before, which had resulted in the death of so many 
innocent people. The drums beat the signal for departure,, 
and King, Queen and Madame Adelaide took their seats 
in the carriage, which drove under the Guichet y — the arched 
gateway of the Carrousel. 

At that moment a young man took aim at Louis- 
Philippe " with a walking-stick which he held in both 
hands ". A faint explosion was heard, a thread of smoke 
rose in the air, and the King pursued his way without a 
scratch. The would-be assassin was seized by the indig- 
nant crowd and dragged to the nearest police-office. There 
he was searched ; a dagger was found on him unsheathed 
and the blade wrapped in paper. He said his name was- 

1 Many other artists lived at one time or another in the Rue Visconti.. 
The sculptor Foyatier inhabited No. 14 from 1827 to 1829. At No. 17 
here are some of the names of lodgers who succeeded one another : Paul 
Delarcche (1^27 to 1834); Eugene Lami (1827 to 1835); Delacroix (1838 
to 1843). Jean Cousin dwelt there about 1547, and the architect du Cerceau 
from 1580 to 1614. A letter of the most learned Arthur Pougin tells us 
how he knew at one time the painter " Ducornet (born without arms) ". 
(Thus he signed his works and his correspondence.) " I have seen him* 
a number ol times working in his atelier with his right foot unstockinged- 
A dwarf and deformed, with an enormous head and a thundering voice- 
he was a strange figure indeed, — and this abortion was called Caesar L" 



THE RUE VISCONTI 43 

Alibaud, and that he lived at No. 3 in the Rue des Marais- 
Saint-Germain, where he occupied the most wretched 
room in the Hotel du Pont-des-Arts. An examination 
of the place led to the discovery of balls and cartridges ; 
Alibaud likewise possessed sundry odd volumes, — Chateau- 
briand's Les Martyrs, an Essai sur les Mceurs, and the 
Works of Saint-Just I The murderous weapon consisted 
of a gun-barrel fixed in a walking-cane ; the charge was 
exploded by means of a spring and catch let off by pulling 
the ornamental tassel of the walking-stick. The shot had 
grazed the King, who afterwards found the wad in his 
bushy whiskers ! 

While waiting for Louis-Philippe to come out, Ali- 
baud had played two games of billiards in a neighbouring 
cafe, but had refused to " amuse himself with the girls," 
because " time pressed "} 

Arraigned before the Court of Assize, the accused 
pleaded enthusiasm in the cause of democracy. " I belong 
to a poor, and therefore honest, family ! " . . . were the 
opening words of the defence he insisted on making on 
his own behalf. 

On nth July, at five in the morning, this ill-balanced 
fool, his head covered with the black veil of parricides^ 
was executed in the Place Saint -Jacques ! 

1 Les Causes Celebres : " Affaire Alibaud". 



ROUND ABOUT SAINT-SULPICE 1 

UNDER the rain that pours down in a never-ceasing 
deluge, changing the Place Saint- Sulpice into a 
lake of mud, the carriages draw up one after another be- 
fore the great Doorway of the Church. Men and women 
disappear into the yawning porch, between files of the 
faithful, or of mere curious spectators watching the pretty 
Parisiennes get out from automobile or brougham and 
hurry under shelter. Some of them turn to the left and 
pass in by a little door in the corner of the Chapel of St. 
Anne, decorated by the painter Eugene Delacroix. We 
will follow and climb the narrow winding stone staircase 
which leads to the loft of the Great Organ. 

We ascend slowly ; the scanty daylight filters through 
narrow slits in the thick walls ; here and there we catch a 
glimpse, looking small and insignificant and dulled by the 
fog and smoke of the city, of the monumental fountain in 
the middle of the Place, the cab-stand and the station of 
the Auteuil tramway, a spot of green amidst a wide ex- 

1 Saint-Sulpice is the largest and most imposing, though far from the 
most beautiful, of the Paris Churches on the Rive Gauche. Indeed in size 
it is hardly, if at all, inferior to Notre-Dame itself, though from its plain 
and heavy Classical architecture its full proportions are hardly realised. 
The present edifice was begun under Louis XIV., and completed in 1749, 
chiefly from the plans of Servandoni, from whom the neighbouring Rue 
Servandoni takes its present name. The organ is one of the famous in- 
struments of the world ; built originally by Cliquot, it was reconstructed 
by the celebrated Cavaille-Coll in the 'nineties. [Transl.] 

44 



m 



ROL'ND ABOUT SAINT-SULPICE 45 

panse of grey. A vaulted passage now takes us to the 
organ-loft itself. From that elevated standpoint we are 
going to assist at the High Mass, in company with Ch. 
M. Widor, the eminent composer and wonder-working 
organist of Saint-Sulpice. 

Between our eyes and the floor of the church the great 
lustres with their glittering lights interpose a perfect 
constellation of stars, while far away, to the left of the 
Altar, under a white beplumed canopy, amid the smoke of 
incense and flaming of candles, motionless on his throne, 
mitre in hand, like some golden idol, some rigid, hieratic 
icon, sits a Prince of the Church, — the Bishop of Martinique 
as a matter of fact, — presiding at the rite. Over our heads 
the bells are swinging ; their mighty clangour reaches us 
in a dull roar, sifted and softened by the sloping slats of 
the louvre-boards, but it sets the tower walls quivering 
round us and the floor shaking beneath our feet. Calm 
and alert, Widor, seated in the centre of his immense 
semi-circular instrument, inspects his five tiers of key- 
boards, pulls out the stops ticketed with musical or odd- 
sounding names, — vox humana, flute, clarinet, piccolo, 
bassoon, tuba mirabilis, — tests the easy working of the 
shifting foot-rests one above another that form the pedals, 
... a bell rings and the Mass begins. 

We watch the striking scene from between the huge 
pipes of unpolished metal belonging to the organ of 178 1, 
the same old-time instrument that accompanied the Ca ira 
in the days of the Great Revolution when Saint-Sulpice 
was dedicated to the worship of Reason. Women in 
bright-coloured frocks beneath heavy fur cloaks strike a 
note of subdued elegance and pretty piety as they listen 
to the solemn fugue of Bach ; the air is full of the fragrance 



4 6 



WALKS IN PARIS 



-of incense surging up to us, mingled with the scent of 
white heliotrope and the fashionable " jardin de mon cure" 
•quite appropriate on a day like this. Above our heads. 



• 


- 






i~** 






» 



*'■«*'- 



m^JM 







si 



CO 



3 



huge sculptured angels of wood, the work of Clodion or 
Duret, crane forward as if fascinated and admiring like 
ourselves. Down below, in the Choir, the Bishop has 
risen from his throne, and blessed the congregation with 



ROUND ABOUT SAIXT-SULPICE 47 

a wide sweeping gesture of benediction. The church 
■empties slowly, and the faithful disperse with discreetly 
muffled footsteps. 

First traversing a small room in which Widor has 
piously brought together the portraits of his famous pre- 
decessors in office, Nivers, Clerambault, Sejan, we mount 
more steps and finally reach a little Chapel containing a 
precious relic, the Dauphin's organ, bought in 1793 by a 
•dealer at the Trianon sale, and repurchased by the church 
authorities in 1804. What memories, sad and sweet, are 
•called up, as we listen to the old-fashioned airs of Gluck 
and Mozart which Widor plays us on the very keyboard 
•once touched by the taper fingers of Queen Marie- 
Antoinette. 

The Sacristy, entered to the right of the High Altar, 
is a delightful place. A graceful gallery of wrought-iron, 
relieved by ornaments of gilt copper, surmounts a series 
of panels of carved woodwork displaying all the unrivalled 
grace and charm of the eighteenth century. In this 
room, on Wednesday, 29th December, 1790, Robespierre, 
Pe"tion, Sillery and Mercier signed the marriage registry 
as witnesses of the union of Camille Desmoulins and 
Lucile Duplessis. The love story of the " Procureur 
•General, of the Lantern" was generally known, and the 
Parisians, sympathetic and curious, crowded the narrow 
space which was all that then existed in front of the 
western colonnades, and clung to the bars of the great 
■gates of Saint-Sulpice to catch a glimpse of the rosy cheeks 
of "the little Duplessis". The Abbe Berardier, Camille's 
former schoolmaster, married the pair, and Sillery re- 
ported in the evening to Madame Elisabeth how, as he 



48 WALKS IN PARIS 

signed the certificate, the Vicaire of Saint-Sulpice, Gueude- 
ville, dropped the pen out of his trembling fingers as his 
astounded eyes read the names of all these witnesses, 
already so notorious and so feared in Paris. . . . Robes- 




Madame Roland 



pierre and Petion, during the service, had held the canopy 
over the head of the newly wedded couple ! All this 
happiness was to fade away like a dream. Less than 
four years afterwards the two heads, Lucile's and Camille's, 



ROUND ABOUT SAINT-SULPICE 49 

fell, within a week of each other, by order of Robespierre, 
beneath the knife of the guillotine in the Place de la Re- 
volution. 

We were still talking of those dreadful days as we 
walked by the slabs of red and green marble which case 
the church walls in the neighbourhood of this most inter- 
esting room, when our master in these studies, Sardou, 
who was conducting us, exclaimed : " Look at those 
marbles ; they could hardly have expected ever to end 
their days in a church and turn Christian ; they were 
Pagan enough once ! " 

Then our wonderful friend, who is so admirably posted 
in every detail, told us how these marble plaques formed 
under Louis XIV. the broad steps down which splashed the 
foaming waters of the Great Cascade at the Chateau de 
Marly. On the King's death, the Council of Regency 
decided to pull down Marly altogether as too costly, but 
Saint-Simon just saved it from destruction. However, 
the Cascade was sacrificed and its place taken by a lawn ; 
the marbles w r ere dismantled, removed to Paris and util- 
ised for the decoration of Saint-Sulpice. 

The Church is surrounded by an entanglement of little 
streets with old-world names and a certain quiet Provin- 
cial charm, the Rue Palatine, the Rue Ferou, the Rue 
Gara?tciere. It is easy to reproduce in imagination the 
ancient look of this silent, semi-ecclesiastical quarter. 
The only sounds that enlivened it, the song of birds 
twittering in the great gardens of the nobles' mansions 
and the houses of religious communities, and the everlast- 
ing pealing of bells calling the faithful to prayer from all 
the neighbourhood. It was only natural that, under the 

4 



50 WALKS IN PARIS 

Terror, the proscribed should come here for hiding in 
these quiet, mysterious domiciles. It was at No. 21 in 
the Rue des Fossoyeurs (now 15 Rue Servandoni) that 
Condorcet, when outlawed, found the asylum which en- 
abled him for a long time to cheat the scaffold. 

Inside and out the unpretending edifice is still in 
pretty nearly the same state as in 1794. At that time 
the owner was named Mme. Vernet, a kinswoman of the 
artists who have made the name illustrious. She was 
asked to give shelter to one of the proscribed : " Is he an 
honest man ? Is he virtuous ? " " Yes, citoyemte." " Then 
my house is open to him," answered this excellent woman. 
And so Condorcet for long months, with the tacit con- 
nivance of the good folks who visited at Mme. Vernet's, 
lived a secluded life in two small rooms on the first floor 
looking into the courtyard, — a little dismal court border- 
ing a wooden staircase, the echoing footsteps on which 
must often have set him shuddering. Almost every 
day the pretty Mme. Condorcet, defying death, would 
glide down this damp and dismal Rue des Fossoyeurs to 
cheer the condemned prisoner with her smile. The brave 
woman meantime kept a linen-drapery shop, 352 Rue 
Saint-Honore', as a means of subsistence, and used to 
paint " miniatures and portraits in pastel, on the mezza- 
nine floor, in a little room above the porte cochere" . As 
for poor Condorcet himself, he was finishing — cruel irony ! 
— his admirable work, Esquisse des progres de I' esprit 
humain ("Sketch of the Progressive Advance of the 
Human Mind"). On 25th March, 1794, discovering that 
a domiciliary visit was to be paid next day at Mme. 
Vernet's, and firmly resolved he would no longer com- 
promise his beloved wife and intrepid hostess, Condorcet 



ROUND ABOUT SAINT-SULPICE 51 

fled from the house, dressed as a workman and wearing 
a coarse woollen cap. In his pockets he carried, beside 
a Horace, a number of little pellets of poison, a compound 
of opium and stramonium, prepared by Cabanis. . . . 

The horrors of the great mans last hours are matter 
of history, — the refuge promised, and afterwards refused, by 
the Suards at Fontenay-aux-Roses, the night spent in the 
quarries of Clamart, then the arrest in a roadside tavern 
of the unhappy philosopher. Perishing of hunger, broken 
down with weariness, with haggard face and bleeding 
feet, he sat munching greedily and reading his Horace be- 
tween the bites, while excited patriots drank their liquor 
at the next table. The vagabond fellow reading his 
Latin book struck them as decidedly suspicious; so he is 
arrested, hoisted on to a broken-down hack, and haled off 
in this fashion, he, one of the greatest men of his day, to 
the village lock-up at Bourg-la-Reine. Next morning, 
the constable, who bethought him at last of taking his 
prisoner something to eat, stumbled over a corpse; cold, 
hunger, poison had done their deadly task ! 

It was at the corner house of the Rue Ferou, under the 
shadow of Saint-Sulpice, that in the year 1754, after supper 
at the house of one of the doorkeepers of the Luxembourg, 
the architect Lescombat was killed, at ten in the evening, 
by a certain Montgeot, who drove a knife into his back. 
Montgeot was the lover of Lescombat's wife, an excitable 
woman, famous for her beauty, who had planned the 
murder to get rid of a husband who was in her way. To 
divert suspicion, Montgeot went himself and informed the 
police, declaring his "dear master" had been accidentally 
killed in the course of a quarrel. The scandal was 




Rue Ferou 



ROUND ABOUT SAINT-SULPICE 53 

tremendous ; all Paris talked of nothing but this crime of 
licentious passion ; then followed a hundred enquiries, ex- 
aminations and cross-examinations, and finally both man 
and woman were condemned to death. 1 Montgeot was 
broken alive on the wheel in the Place de la Croix-Rouge, 
and Mme. Lescombat hanged in the Place de Gi'eve. 
11 There was an extraordinary concourse of spectators in 
the adjacent streets merely to see her go by, while every 
room overlooking the Place de Grcve had been engaged 
beforehand to see her hanged. Even the Towers of 
Notre-Dame had their onlookers. The people clapped 
hands as at a play, street-hawkers vended the printed his- 
tory of her crime and her portrait. — not nearly so pretty 
as she was in reality." 2 

So the whole terrible drama ended with a melancholy 
ballad chanted by the Paris street-singers of 1755. 3 

The Rue Ferou, where Lescombat met his fate, is to 
this day delightfully picturesque, dominated on the one 
side by the lofty towers of Saint-Sulpice and on the 
other bordered by the trees of the Luxembourg Gardens. 
On the right-hand side is a raised terrace, belonging to 
the great composer Massenet's house. Yes, at No. 48 in 
the Rue de Vaugirard, on the first floor of an ancient 

lu Decree of the Court of the Parlement condemning Jean-Louis de 
Montgeot to be broken alive in the Place de Greve for murder committed 
on the person of Louis-Alexandre Lescombat, architect; dated 31st De- 
cember, 1754" (Paris, sold by P. G. Simon, 1755). 

2 Journal de Barbier (July, 1755). 

3 Facing the Rue Ferou there formerly opened an alley called the 
Ruelle du Pressoir Notre-Dame, also known under the name of UUis des 
Ruelles. Here Lavoisier lay in hiding, at No. 9. Here he was dis- 
covered and arrested. Condemned to death by the Revolutionary 
Tribunal, he perished on the scaffold, 18th May, of the same year. — G. 
Pessard, Dictionnaire historique de Paris. 



54 WALKS IN PARIS 

mansion, once the abode of nobles, whose sunny windows 
look out on the flower-beds of the Petit-Luxembourg, our 
dear master, Massenet, has found a delicious nest. There, 
in a great room, filled with tapestries and books and carved 
oak and choice knick-knacks, every morning from four 
o'clock, sits the master working at a little table, — style 
Louis XV., Manon's table surely ! Summer and winter 
alike, at this early hour, does Massenet, warmly wrapped 
in his great red dressing-gown, light his fire, or throw 
open his window, according to the time of year, and sets 
to at his daily task. Thus were written Marie-Magdeleine, 
Manon, Werther, La JVavarraise, Le Jongleur de Notre- 
Dame, masterpieces one and all, — and Ariane, which we 
were applauding only yesterday. 

Sometimes, as day breaks, Massenet, traversing his 
little sleeping-room, in his brilliant costume of cardinal's 
scarlet, steps out on to his terrace, and as he smokes a 
morning cigarette, the great composer watches the summit 
of the great Towers of Saint-Sulpice redden under the 
first fires of the rising sun . . . then he comes back to 
resume his noble activity of every day. 

We examine with tender interest the relics and 
mementoes that adorn the walls, — photographs of dead 
friends, family souvenirs, a card of Flaubert's dated the 
day of the first representation of the Roi de Lahore, and 
inscribed : " I pity you this morning, I shall envy you this 
evening ! " Then a letter draws our eye — it is a word from 
Georges Bizet : — 

". . . Never before has our modern school produced 
anything quite like it ; you make my head reel, you 
terrible fellow ! You are tremendous, there ! My wife 
has just put the score of Marie-Magdeleine under lock and 



ROUND ABOUT SAINT-SULPICE 55 

key. That speaks for itself ! You are really getting too 
dangerous altogether. All the same, he sure of this, dear 
master, no one is more sincere in his admiration and his 
affection than your devoted friend 

" Bizet" 

I have copied the letter here, being convinced I can 
never find a more eloquent peroration for my chapter ! 



THE ABBAYE-AUX-BOIS 

AT the corner of the Rue de Sevres and the Rue de la 
Chaise, behind the Square du Bon Marcht, a long, 
gloomy wall, thickly overgrown with ivy, contrasts 
strangely with the new houses of this modernised district. 
Above the wall appear the tops of trees, and further on 
roofs covered with greenish-grey tiles and surmounted by 
bell-turrets topped like a mandarin's hat. This severe- 
looking building is the famous Abbaye-aux-Bois. Very 
soon, alas ! the old historic house, which gave asylum to 
such famous friendships and sheltered at one time or an- 
other all our greatest celebrities, is destined to disappear. 
So, ere the house-breakers' pick and the woodmen's axe lay 
low the ancient trees and destroy the storied stones, let 
it be ours to make a last pious pilgrimage to this house of 
gentle memories. 

The entrance to the Abbaye-aux-Bois is at No. 16 Rue 
de Sevres. The iron gates used formerly to be kept tightly 
closed ; but now the cage is empty, and the door wide 
open. A gardener is pruning a clump of rose-bushes in 
the centre of the vast court that stretches in front of the 
vast building. The general tone of these is a rusty red ; 
the long rows of windows, all closed, give an impression of 
death and desolation ; behind the small curtainless panes 
all is still and silent ; everything suggests that a tempest 

56 



THE ABBAYE-AUX-BOIS 



57 



of disaster has passed upon the place. Meantime a score 
or so of Nuns, with black veils and gowns, and white 
bodices, still continue to occupy, in subdued and sorrowful 
resignation, a few rooms in this vast edifice, while waiting 
for the final dispersal, now very near at hand. To their 
perfect courtesy we owed the privilege of going through 
the deserted buildings. 1 




Abbaye-aiix-Bois 

First we visit the antique parlours, where, behind 
■gratings of closely-set bars, still floats the light curtain of 
faded woollen which hung as a veil between the Nuns 
and the outside world. Then our footsteps echo down 
the long vaulted corridors, bearing at intervals the stern 
monastic injunction, — Silence. . . . We pass by silent clois- 
tered courts, where the rank grass is already sprout- 

1 Savalette de Langes, the enigmatic heroine — or hero — of the amazing 
■story told by M. G. Lenotre in his Vieux papier s, vieilles maisons, 2nd 
series, lived as a Lady Boarder at the Abbaye-aux-Bois, it seems, before 
being lodged at Versailles at the King's expense, between 1824 and 1832. 



58 



WALKS IN PARIS 



ing between the worn paving-stones, which it frames 
round with a green, velvety border. A tall, carved door 
opens suddenly on a neglected garden, and the strong 
scent of box fills our nostrils. In this dreary, savage 
place, who would ever dream he was in the very heart of 
Paris ? 

... A peine im vague son 
Dit que la ville est la qui chante sa chanson ! . . . l 

Every shade of 
green is there, from 
the intense emerald 
green that dyes the 
trunks of the old 
trees to the pale hue 
of the lichens that 
cushion the stone 
benches half-buried 
in the unkempt grass, 
and the mosses that 
have crept over 
the garden - paths ; 
through the sha- 
dowy haze gleams 
the dull, metallic 
lustre of the leaves 
of yews, pines and 
ivy. . . . 

A few weeks more perhaps, and of all this scene, so 
poetical and full of associations, nothing will be left but 
some heaps of rotting refuse and bundles of faggots, 

1 Paul Verlaine, Nocturne Parisien. Poeties, p. 53. . . . 'Scarcely a 
vague sound tells that the City is there singing its own song ! . . ." 




Garden of the Abbayc-aux-Bois 



THE ABBAYE-AUX-BOIS 59 

which the Auvergnat firewood dealers in the Rue de 
Sevres will sell by retail to their customers ! . . . As we 
follow these long garden alleys, interspersed with little 
altar-shrines now abandoned to decay, our conductress 
points out two narrow windows on the third floor. 

" These," she tells us, " were the first rooms occu- 
pied by Mme. Recamier ; the Sceur Sainte-Clotilde, who 
has been in the Abbaye ever since 1843, can st iU remem- 
ber her, in spite of her great age ; she has seen Chateau- 
briand, feeble and tottering, cross the entrance court, 
leaning on his valet's arm. Mme. Recamier would rest 
on his — for she was almost blind — when she walked with 
him in the gardens." 

Mme. Recamier ! . . . Chateaubriand ! . . . what mem- 
ories do the names recall ! Instinctively we seem to see 
the long procession making devout pilgrimage to the 
Abbaye-aux-Bois, the long procession of admirers of 
this great man and adorers of this most charming woman. 
In her was incarnate that most precious of all feminine 
perfections, the gift of pleasing. Mme. Recamier was in- 
comparable in her powers of seduction — "the eyes met a 
smile that said as plain as words, ' Yes, I understand ! ' 
She applied her whole will to the task, — and she was 
irresistible. 1 

From the first day he knew her, Chateaubriand adored 
her; for thirty years, no matter what his adventures 
elsewhere, he adopted the gentle habit of consecrating 
some hours of every afternoon to this friendship, so loving 
and so binding. Absent, his letters spoke for him : " I 

1 Sainte-Beuve, Causeries du Lundi, vol. i., p. 123. — " Not enough 
woman and too much goddess. ... I have never seen anything so an- 
gelic in the Paris mud." — Lamartine, Cours familier de litteraiure, vol. ix. 



6o WALKS IN PARIS 

write to you from a wretched hovel to tell you that, whether 
in France or out of France, I live for you and wait for 
you ". — " Men speak of my high estate and my wealth ! — 
my wealth is you, and my high estate is the recollection 
of you." — " I will not recover, I cannot recover, away 
from you." These three fragments of letters, dated at 
three different dates far apart, declare the continuity of 
this mutual affection. 1 M. de Montlosier used to assert 
that, like the Cid, Mme. Recamier could speak of " five 
hundred of my friends " ; Canova, " to be ideal, had only 
to copy his model " ; Ampere, 2 Ballanche, 3 Benjamin Con- 
stant, 4 Prince August of Prussia and M. de Montmorency 
cherished her with jealous affection ; Lamartine, albeit 
somewhat coldly received by M. de Chateaubriand, who 
.spoke of him amongst intimates as " that great noodle," 
arranged bouquets and wrote sentimental verses for her ; 
General Lamarque declared himself " infatuated with her," 
and Horace Vernet dedicated his first drawing to her. 
The years seemed to pass over Mme. Recamier's head 
without harming her wondrous charm and prestige. 
Sainte-Beuve leaves us a portrait-sketch full of feeling, 5 

1 " She loved Chateaubriand passionately and profoundly, — how deeply 
■could be gauged by the grief his infidelities cost her." — Herriot, 
Madame Recamier et ses amis, vol. ii., p. ioo. 

2 " That New Year's Day when I saw you appear, suddenly, in a white 
dress, with that grace of which nothing had ever given me a notion, will 
never quit my memory." — Correspondance d' Ampere, 1829. 

3,4 Ballanche was not a man, he was a sublime somnambulist in life." 
— Lamartine, Cours familier de litter ature, p. 130. 

4 "When I feel that danger is a way of. winning an expression of in- 
terest from you, I feel only pleasure at incurring it." — Benjamin Con- 
stant to Mme. Recamier. 

5 " Never did Mme. de Maintenon employ so much ingenuity to keep 
Louis XIV. amused as Mme. Recamier did for Chateaubriand." — Sainte- 
Beuve. 



THE ABBAYE-AUX-BOIS 61 

and the good Sister Sainte-Clotilde, who was so obliging 
as to recall her recollections of old times for our benefit, 
told us only yesterday of ''the unforgettable charm of 
that sweet lady, aged but still oh ! so pretty ". Then the 
latest, and not least accomplished, of her biographers, 
M. Edouard Herriot, has quite recently devoted an admir- 
able study l to her, full of sympathetic feeling . . . the 
charm works still ! . . . 

Needless to say envy and evil-speaking and base de- 
traction, the words that never fail to spring up about 
success, all flourished exceedingly. 2 

But that in nowise hindered the fair Juliette from 
conquering Paris by her grace and beauty, disarming 
anger and hostility and " perfecting the art of friendship ". 3 

We climb the three flights leading to the first lodging 
occupied by Mme. Recamier when in October, 1 8 19, after 
her husband's ruin, she came, at the age of forty-two, to 
find refuge at the Abbaye in two little rooms which 
Chateaubriand thus describes : " A dark corridor separated 

1 Herriot, Madame Recamier et ses amis (2 vols.). 
2 " Juliette et Rene s'aimaient d'amour si tendre 
Que Dieu sans les punir a pu les pardonner. 
II n'a pas voulu que l'une put donner 
Ce que l'autre ne pouvait prendre." 
(Intermediaire des Curieux et des Chercheurs, — French Notes and 
Queries, vol. xv., p. 591.) 

"Juliette and Rene loved with so tender a love that God found it in 
His heart to pardon them without punishing. He would not suffer that 
one could give what the other could not receive." 
3 Sainte-Beuve, Nouveaux Lundis. 

Brillat-Savarin dedicated one of his stories to her in these terms : 
'"Tis the tribute of a friendship that dates from your girlhood, and may 
be the homage of a tenderer feeling. . . . How can I tell ... at my age, 
a man dares not any more question his heart." 



62 WALKS IN PARIS 

them . . . the bedchamber was adorned with a bookcase, 
a harp, the portrait of Mme. de Stael and a moonlight 
view by Coppet . . . the outlook from the windows was 
upon the garden of the Abbey. . . . The top branches of 
an acacia reached the level of the eye. There was a view 
of church steeples cutting the sky with their points, and 
far away on the horizon the hills of Sevres." l 

In these humble rooms, with tiled floors, incon- 
veniently disposed and perched under the slates, Mme. 
Recamier remained for six years. At the present day 
the one room is subdivided into two and is occupied by 
a sempstress and her mother; the acacia which scented 
the whole floor was felled some time since, and high mo- 
dern houses cut off a part of the distant blue horizon. 
Cagebirds sing beside a sewing-machine, fashion-plates are 
pinned on the walls, a picture of a Breton girl in national 
costume replaces the figure of Mme. de Stael . . . and we 
find it hard to realise that in this modest workgirl's room 
for years the noblest and fairest dames of Paris met daily 
the men of their day most highly gifted in birth, intellect 
and fortune ! 2 

In 1826, on the death of the Marquise de Montmirail, 
Mme. Recamier took up her abode in a set of apartments 
on the first floor, far larger and indeed almost luxurious. 
The noble staircase leading to both lodgings opens on 
the left-hand into the Great Court of the Abbey; it is 
intact in itself, but the fine balustrade of wrought-iron has 
been torn down and sold, as also the lustre illuminating the 

1 " The setting sun was gilding the picture, pouring in through the 
open windows." — Me moires d'Outre-Tombe, vol. i., p. 70, edition Bire. 

2 " Mme. Recamier at the Abbaye never filled a greater place in the 
world than in this humble workroom." — Sainte-Beuve. 



THE ABBAYE-AUX-BOIS 



63 



vestibule, where, during the last few years of his life, two 
footmen used to wait for M. de Chateaubriand to carry 




Madame Recamier 

him up — on a chair — to the rooms of his old friend and 
mistress. 1 

1,1 1 am grown cowardly at bearing pain, I am too old and have 
suffered too much in my day. I fight a sore fight with sorrow and vexation 
for the few years left to me ; this old tattered fragment of my life is scarce 
worth the care I take of it." — Chateaubriand, Souvenirs et Correspond- 
ence. 

" M. de Chateaubriand feels it deeply, he cannot leave his room. Mme. 
Recamier goes to see him there every day, but she only sees him under 
the fire of Mme. de Chateaubriand's eyes, who can at last avenge herself 
for fifty years of neglect." 



64 WALKS IN PARIS 

The former entrance to Mme. Recamier's apartments 
was by a door now disused ; you enter now by what was 
the small dining-room, opening into the great historic 
salon where Chateaubriand as an old man communicated 
extracts to his intimate friends from the M emoires d' Outre- 
Tombe, and organised the public reading of his tragedy of 
Moise (27th June, 1829). . . . "All that v/as famous and 
fascinating in France was there." The men were renowned,, 
the women charming, and you came away " with feelings 
of, it may be, fictitious emotion, but quite genuine 
respect "} This noble room, so full of glorious memories, 2 
still opens its four windows, two on the Rue de Sevres,. 
two on the horse-shoe terrace which bounds the entrance 
of the A bbaye-aux-Bois on the left hand. A lady artist, 
with a true aesthetic instinct, has turned it into an atelier^ 
where under her skilful supervision, intelligent workwomen 
and gentlewomen who have fallen on evil days repair old 
tapestry, embroider copes, illumine missals, design robes 
and costumes of old lace. 

The woodwork and panelling of the room have been. 

1 Lamartine, Cours familier de litterature. 

2 " I go over to see Mme. Recamier. The poor lady is losing her sight,, 
and to save what she has left, she surrounds herself with semi-darkness.. 
You can only find your way by feeling into the great salon at the Abbaye- 
aux-Bois ; shutters, curtains are all closed, and the light coming from the 
door would hardly serve to guide your steps, if the poor blind woman's 
gende voice did not help you to steer for the great screen which shelters 
her armchair. Your eyes are shrouded for a while like hers, but you are 
in a friendly country and you soon recognise M. Ampere's voice and M. 
Brifaut's. . . . Little by little I see clearer and I can make out persons 
and objects ; the great picture of Corinne which fills the whole of one side 
of the room becomes visible in its beauty. . . ." — Demiers Souvenirs, par 
le Comte d'Estourmel, pp. 17, 18. " Mme. Recamier died of cholera, 12th 
May, 1849, in the Rue Neuve-des-Petits-Champs, at her niece's house, at 
the Library. She was still beautiful, beyond any dispute." 




cq 






o 
U 



c 

rt 

o 



66 WALKS IN PARIS 

sold, as well as the chimney-piece, 1 against which the 
" unamusable" Vicomte- used to lean, in a silence the 
company was fain to regard as expressing general good- 
will. Of all the past splendour there remains only the 
sculptured cornice and the old parquet flooring, where 
beside the sofa of the blind Juliette stood the armchair of 
the dying Rene. 3 

Chateaubriand writes in the admirable chapter in 
which he tells of his tragic boyhood at the Chateau de 
Combourg : — 

" The recollections that awake in my memory over- 
whelm me with their force and multitude,— and yet 
what possible meaning have they for the rest of man 
kind?" 4 

The visit we have just paid to the old house of the 
Abbaye-aux-Bois is an answer to the question. A whole 
host of phantoms, sad and sweet, has risen only at the call 
of a woman's name; but then this woman was beautiful 

1 " Underneath the picture of Corinne would stand Chateaubriand, his 
short stature, his thin legs, his manly bust, his Olympian head." — 
Herriot, Madame Recamier et ses amis, Notes, p. 389. 

2 " M. de Chateaubriand pondered more than he talked." 

3t> Paris, 1st September. 1847. — The operation which Mme. Recamier 
finally decided to undergo has definitely failed. She remains as blind as 
before. They say she is much depressed and in a state of health which, 
without implying any immediate danger, causes her friends no little 
anxiety. If she were to be taken from them, it would leave a great void 
in Chateaubriand's existence. But how far would he feel it. Upon my 
word, I cannot say. He seems to have fallen into a condition of utter 
prostration, and 1 always return full of sorrow whenever I go to see him. 
Quantum mutatus ! only to go back twenty years. At any rate he bears 
his sad state with great courage, if not without weariness. Unfortunately 
there is no possibility of diverting him, because for that he must be able 
to talk, and he has not the strength for it." — Letter from Lamennais to 
the Baron de Vitrolles. 

4 Chateaubriand, Memoires d'Outre-Tombe. 



THE ABBAYE-AUX-BOIS 67 

and good and lovable, and well deserved the adoration 
she received. 1 

1 28th October, 1906, the street loungers crowd before the open Gates 
of what was once the Abbaye-aux-Bois, staring at the house-breakers tear- 
ing down the old building. A notice i; suspended above the entrance 
gates to this effect: — 

" Demolition of the former Convent of the Abbaye-aux-Bois. 

" To be sold, — numerous lots of woodwork and carving, oak parquet 
floo ing, timber and carpentry . . . 3,000 yards of ashlar walling, plaster, 
firewood, etc., etc." 

The contractor for the demolition, M. Marly, has very obligingly 
offered for the acceptance of the Musee Carnavalet the humble little door 
once giving access to Mme. Recamier's first lodging in the Abbaye. 



ROUND ABOUT THE PLACE MAUBERT 

THE Place Maubert was in the Middle Ages one of 
the most picturesque " warts " of Paris. The 
scholars, who swarmed in this quarter, where colleges 
were so numerous, caroused there with the " pretty 
rakes" celebrated by Villon. " They danced there pell- 
mell to the sound of merry flutes and tuneful bagpipes ; " 
they made very merry, " playing high jinks, drinking, 
feasting . . . lapping Burgundy, white wine and red wine 
. . . guzzling porringers of tasty meats and licking their 
chops after, — wine-flasks going round gaily, and hams danc- 
ing and cups flying. . . ." l The Square was surrounded 
by pewterers' shops and taverns, eating-houses and thieves' 
kitchens ; and the good virgins imprisoned in their barred 
niches at the corners of the dark alleys leading into this 
centre of noise and joviality, must have seen some very 
queer sights by the light of the twinkling tapers which at 
fall of night pious dames would light up in their honour. 

The same noisy haunt of popular merry-making 
served also as a place of execution. Here, in 1546, was 
burnt alive the unfortunate Etienne Dolet, philosopher and 
printer, in the reign of Francois I., the restorer of letters 
in France, as everybody knows ! 

At the present day modern improvements have turned 

1 Rabelais, ch. v., bk. 1 La Vie de Gargantua. 
68 



ROUND ABOUT THE PLACE MAUBERT 69 

the Place Maubert into a vast open space, commonplace 
in aspect and abutting on a vulgar market built on the 
ruins of the old House of the Carmelite Fathers. It is 
ringed about with a range of liquor-shops whose copper 
alembics glitter menacingly like so many engines of de- 
struction trained on the Parisian populace. In the middle 
a deplorable statue recalls the misfortunes of poor Etienne 
Dolet, and outrages him once more. 

The Rue Maitre- Albert opens to the right, formerly 
known as the Rue Perdue. It is dark and dirty, the tall 
houses on either hand making it seem even narrower and 
gloomier than it is. There, at No. 13, in a poor house, 
now a foul hotel garni, the Hotel du Midi, 7th February, 
1820, died Zamor, Madame Dubarry's negro, the ill-con- 
ditioned ape who served to divert Louis XV. and was 
flattered and fawned upon by the Favourite's courtiers. 
Later on, with villainous ingratitude he helped to bring 
his benefactress to the guillotine. After the Revolution, 
an object of universal reprobation and contempt, he took 
earth in the most dismal house in this dismal Rue Perdue. 

It was there that Mme. Lejeune, the landlord's 
daughter, knew him ; she used to talk of him to M. Vatel, 
the enthusiastic biographer of the Dubarry : — 

"Zamor was very short," she said, "no taller than I 
am ; he was not five feet. He was a sickly creature, a 
mulatto more than a negro; his complexion was a dingy 
yellow, the nose flattish, the hair rather woolly, scanty 
and turning grey. ... He made a living by giving 
elementary lessons, teaching children to read and write, 
and a smattering of grammar and spelling. . . . He would 
have bar] enough to live on, had he not been infatuated 
with a woman who kept a haberdashery shop. He had 



70 WALKS IN PARIS 

entrusted all his savings to her, and she had lost it for 
him. . . . The rent he paid was sixty francs a year." l 

Onc morning a neighbour saw his door was ajar. As 
this was unusual, and he was perfectly well-mannered, 
always passing the time of day with everybody living in 
the same house, she ventured in, and found him dead in 
his bed. He had only three francs of money, which lay on 
his bedside table. 

We have visited the room where this pathetic Favour- 
ite's favourite died, this squalid buffoon who, il dressed out 
in a hussar's jacket of red velvet laced with silver, a toy 
sabre at his side, a furred colback on his head, had prowled 
about the silken skirts of the Dubarry, that wonderful 
robe of bleu de France, with Louis' monogram woven in 
in oleander sprays, ending with a D for Dubarry in 
myosotis. . . ." 

After climbing a dilapidated staircase to the second 
floor, we reach the miserable room, and an acrid, nauseating 
smell takes our breath away : the present occupier is a 
dealer in old cigarette ends collected in the public streets. 
After picking over his merchandise, he spreads the stuff 
out to dry on his bed and chest of drawers, on the floor 
as well as on the little chimney-piece, style Louis XVI., 
which is still intact, where Zamor used to try and coax 
his miserable turf fire into a blaze. . . . The windows, 
which are protected by an iron rail, look into a damp, 
dark courtyard of narrow proportions, which gives all the 
light the wretched place receives. Except for the pas- 
sage and partition which divides the room, already small 
enough, into two tiny closets, nothing is altered. A 

1 Ch. Vatel, Histoirc dc Madame dit Barry, vol. ii ., pp. 367, 368, — 
" Pieces just ficatives." 



ROUND ABOUT THE PLACE MAUBERT 71 

short search would doubtless discover on the walls, 
which were originally whitewashed, the mark of the nails 
where the portraits of Robespierre and Marat, the gods 
of the sanctuarv, used to han? ! 

Leaving the melancholy place, we will visit the next 




Part of a silk petticoat once belonging to Madame Dubarry 

house, Xo. r 5. There a fruiterer has established her quaint 
little shop in a courtyard that is marked on Turgot's Plan 
of 1739. A wee girl, with laughing eyes and a mass of 
tousled yellow hair down her back, was buying this 
morning three-halfpenny worth of salad ; she was like a 



72 WALKS IN PARIS 

sunbeam come to brighten these old stones and their sad 
associations. 

Opposite, at No. 16, a building in ruins still shows 
some vestiges of Renaissance carvings, and a grocer has 
stocked his reserve supplies in the cellars that were once 
— the tradition is open to doubt, however, — dungeons. 
Under the dark, greasy archway opens a low door which, 
towards the end of the Second Empire, was the mysterious 
entrance to a wine-dealer's back-shop. Here, by the light 
of a smoky lamp, a band of wild-eyed conspirators used 
to meet to talk over their dreams of overthrowing the 
Imperial regime. The wine-dealer was named Allemane, 
and his son, a member of the Commune in 1871, and 
afterwards a Deputy, has given his name to a section of 
the Revolutionary party. 

Next, turning down the Rue des Grands-Degres, let 
us make for the Rue de a Bticherie, where we will call a 
halt before an odd-looking fragment of antiquity at the 
corner of the Rue de I 'Hotel-Colbert. This was once the 
Faculte de Medecine ; it is nothing but a picturesque ruin 
now, pitted with mire and mud, burnt by the sun and 
worn by the rain, an old building with windows wreathed 
in garlands of sculptured flower and leaf, overtopped by a 
monumental dome. From the old, shabby walls brilliant- 
hued advertisements by Cheret or one of his imitators 
stare out bright and cheerful, making a delicious discord. 
Opposite, beneath the severely plain doorway of an old 
Louis XIV. mansion, a hot milk and coffee stall-keeper 
has arranged on trestles her heaters and bowls and piles 
of sugar, and three merry Paris workgirls, bright-colouied 
handkerchiefs stuck anyhow over their tousled hair, 
their noses pink with cold, are gulping down in laughing 



ROUND ABOUT THE PLACE MAUBERT 73 

haste a "petit noir" scalding hot before scampering back to 
the workroom, where their nimble fingers are trimming 
frocks or wiring artificial flowers. 

All that is left of the antique Rue du Fouarre — and it 
is little enough — lies alongside the old buildings q{ the 
Hotel Dieu ; two or three dilapidated doorways, a few 
outlandish-looking roofs alone recall the ancient fame 
of this Rue du Feurre, corrupted into Rue du Fouarre? 
where Rabelais describes Pantagruel as disputing "against 
all the regents, masters, and orators of the Faculties, and 
putting them a quia ". In old French this word feurre 
(whence fourrage) meant "straw," and the street owed its 
appellation to the straw on which the scholars sat grouped 
about their professors' desks. Did not Philippe-Auguste, 
in 1208, order the straw which littered his Royal apart- 
ments to be given as largesse among the poor ? Castles, 
churches, schools, taverns had no better floor covering ; 
it was only after the Crusades that Oriental carpets and 
mosaic patterns were introduced into France. 

This Rue du Fouarre contained the schools of the 
Four Nations, where work went on with no small degree 
of vigour. In winter at five in the morning the Mass at 

1 Sauval reports that "in 1358, the University made complaint to 
the Regent, afterwards Charles V., to the effect that the Rice an Feurre 
was every night encumbered with filth and fetid refuse^ brought by ill- 
conditioned individuals, further, that they were in the habit of forcing 
the doors of the School to smuggle in persons of evil life, who used to 
spend the night there and befoul the places where the scholars sat, and 
the professor's desk to boot ". 

As a result of this petition the Regent decreed that two gates should 
be set up at either end of the Rue an Feurre, which gates should be shut 
at night-time. Under Francois I. the street took the name of the Rue an 
Feurre, which was afterwards corrupted into the Rue du Fouarre. 



74 WALKS IN PARIS 

the Church of Saint-Julien-le-Pauvre announced the open- 
ing of the classes, by the light of a few wretched candles ; 
at six prime was rung at Not re-Dame, then tierce sounded,, 
then nones, then vespers. . . . One great memory at- 
taches to the old street ; it was there, according to tradition r 
that the sublime Dante, during one of his two sojourns at 
Paris, attended the lectures of a famous teacher, Sigier 
de Brabant. The poet mentions him in his Paradiso 
(canto x., v. I 36) : — 

Essa e la luce eterna di Sigieri 

Che leggendo nel vico degli Strami. . . . 

" It is the everlasting light of Sigier, who teaching in 
the street of Straws, . . ." We can still realise the im- 
pression he must have kept of that turbulent street, as 
well as of the long visits he would pay to the humble 
Church of Saint-Julien-le-Pauvre, a few steps away. 

Life is full of contrasts. After evoking the glorious 
memory of Dante, we are to plunge straight into the 
miriest depths. Next to the Rue du Foaarre comes the 
Rue des Ang/ais, and its squalid horrors. This foul and 
malodorous alley is destined very shortly to be demolished ; 
and with it will disappear a notorious haunt of bad char- 
acters, a recognised stage in the official rounds of inspection 
of suspicious localities, — the Tavern of the Pere Lunette. 
A gigantic pair of spectacles projecting above a mean- 
looking front painted red marks the site of this extremely 
ambiguous establishment. Once inside the door, you find 
yourself in a narrow passage-way, on your right a huge 
tin counter ornamented with a globe in which some un- 
happy gudgeon are flicking their tails. The customers 
stand about absorbing spirits, half-pints of beer and goes 




Round the Place Maubert. — From Plan of Paris, known as Turgot's, 

ot 1739 



74 



WALKS IN PARIS 



the Church of Saint -Julien-le-PaUv re announced the open- 
ing of the classes, by the light of a few wretched candles ; 
at six prime was rung at Not re-Dame, then tierce sounded, 
then nones, t hen vespers. . . . One great memory ,at- 



taches to the ol 
that the sublime 
Paris, attendqd the J 
de Brabant, 
(canto x., v. I 



" It is the 
the street of 
press ion he 
well as of th 
Church of Sai 



Life is full 
memory of E 
miriest depths 
Rue des AngL 
malodorous allfc) 
and with it will di 
acters, a recognised stage 
of suspicious localities, 

gigantic pa 




king the gloricus 
le 
Fouarre comes t 
ors. This foul aid 
>rtly to be demolished ; 
bus haunt of bad ch; ; 
rounds of inspection 
oK^he Pere Lunet e. 
acting abine d mean - 
g front painted red marks the site of this extremely 
tablishment. de the door, you find 

narrow passage-way our right a huge 

tin counter ornamented with a globe in which some un- 
happy gudgeon are flicking their tails. The customers 
stand about absorbing spirits, half-pints of beer and goes 



r n( spectacles 




Round the Place Maubcrt. — From Plan of Paris, known as Turgot's, 

ot 1739 




Remains ot the old Faculte de Medecine, about 1855 



ROUND ABOUT THE PLACE MAUBERT 77 

of cherry-brandy ; on the other side, below a row of mini- 
ature casks decorated with portraits of celebrities of the 
day — Zola, Clemenceau, Jules Ferry, Freycinet — stretches 
an immense wooden bench, clamped to the wall, where 




Rue des Anglais and the Cabaret da Fire Lunette 

the fair sex is graciously permitted to recover from the 
effects of too copious potations. In the room at the 
back, the size of a pocket-handkerchief, three deal tables 
are surrounded by men and women drinking, and more 
or less drunk, more or less consumptive and unhealthy 
looking, but all equally sottish and brutalised. Men 



78 WALKS IN PARIS 

smoke and jabber, shout or snore, while a fellow with a 
guitar sings a sentimental ballad, his back to a wall 
plastered with comic pictures in which Rochefort's peg- 
top head and Victor Hugo's Olympian brow stand out 
conspicuous, cheek by jowl with scenes that would very 
rightly shock M. Berenger's susceptibilities. 

The place is redolent of vice and wretchedness, dis- 
sipation and the vilest intoxication . . . yet this ignoble 
tavern cannot be classed as dangerous. I will not go so 
far as to say that a police raid would not reap from the 
pockets of the light-fingered gentry who frequent the 
house a pretty harvest of knives, revolvers and life-pre- 
servers ; but after all, the majority are petty pickpockets, 
broken-down university ■ men, habitual drunkards and 
general ne'er-do-weels rather than ferocious bandits. The 
Pere Lunette does not live up to his reputation ; as they 
say in greenroom slang, " there's a lot of bunkum and 
paper " about it. They are on the alert for the entrance 
of the foreigner anxious to make serious investigation into 
the seamy side of life in Paris, and directly the door opens, 
the regular customers are quick to throw themselves into 
studied attitudes to ' : please the gentleman". It is, with 
less elaborate scenery, but with the stink thrown in, the 
Fifth Act of one of those tearing melodramas we see so 
artistically staged at the Ambigu by Pierre Decourcelle. 
... At any rate you leave the place finally, your head 
aching with the foul smells and hideous sounds, your 
heart oppressed with the pitiful sights. In spite of all, 
you are filled with an overmastering pity for the poor 
creatures who have so utterly forfeited their share of 
ordinary human pleasures as to be reduced to haunt such 
detestable dens as this in search of a little gaiety and 
brightness, and above all a moment of forge tfulness ! 



THE JARDIN DES PLANTES 

THE best part of life is peihnps made up of memories. 
So I can never enter without a vivid feeling of 
pleasure the iron gates of the old fardin des Plantes, where, 
as a mere child, I used to come, a picture book under my 
arm, with my father, who, like Delacroix, like Barve, like 
my grandfather P. -J. Mene, like Gerome and Fre'miet and 
Rosa Bonheur, was in the frequent habit of installing his 
little modelling stcol within a few feet of the lions and 
tigers he was copying. 

We used to get there at an early hour, about eight 
o'clock, before the arrival of the usual horde of visitors. 
The keeper, who was called Bocquet — a tall, thin fellow r 
with flashing eyes — would caress his savage charges, ad- 
dress them by name, toss them scraps of meat, to induce 
them to move about as required, while my father, whom 
habit had familiarised with the noble beasts, with eyes that 
are at times so deep and tender, would pat their heads 
till they came rubbing themselves cat-like against the 
bars. 

The smell was often overpowering and the heat 
stifling. You could hear the whistling of the ichneumons 
and pole-cats installed in the round-houses near the exit ; 
now and again a roar of anger would set the window-panes 
trembling. How diverting were these hours of work in 

79 



80 WALKS IN PARIS 

front of the wild beasts' cages, in the back-corridor of the 
menagerie, close to a little yard where dogs on the chain 
kept up a yelping and howling ! 

Then very often it was in the garden itself, on the 
grass, in front of the stags and fawns, the waders and vul- 
tures, that these famous workers would set up their little 
portable studios, their easels and modelling tables, or 
sometimes in the reptile house, an ancient building almost 
tumbling to pieces with age. The crocodiles lived there, 
imprisoned in long narrow boxes like coffins ; then you 
could see pythons also, and " asps of old Nile," and hor- 
rible hairy spiders, salamanders and chameleons, and last 
but not least, a boa that swallowed a woollen blanket and 
then brought it up again hardly a bit the worse ! The 
Director used to give us little green lizards and harmless 
slow- worms that made us scream with fright by suddenly 
popping their long heads out of the pockets of our 
schoolboy jackets ! Then those headlong scampers round 
the labyrinth and the cedar which M. de Jussieu — so 
declares a time-honoured legend it would be sinful to 
doubt — "brought from Lebanon in his hat," in 1735. 
. . . How far away it all is, and what memories ot 
childish years this old Jardin des P /antes calls up, to be 
sure ! 

Amidst all the changes that transform Paris from day 
to day, it is one of the few T corners that have been so 
fortunate as to keep their delightful, old-fashioned aspect. 
M. de Buffon would still feel himself quite at home; he 
would even find his own working-table, still preserved in 
a sort of library a few steps from a very wonderful marble 
group of a Goat and Children, which should certainly be in 
the Louvre instead of an out-of-the-way corridor. Very few 



THE JARDIN DES PLANTES 



Si 



of the plates indeed would need any " bringing up to date " 
in the fine work issued by Curmer in 1842 ; the ''Abys- 
sinian Goat Hutches," the "Heron Cages," the "Wild 
Beast Houses " are precisely as represented in Daubigny's 
and Ch. Jacque's drawings of that day. 

Nor does the 
public seem greatly 
altered. Here are 
the same Parisian 
idlers craning over 
the rails of the same 
bear-pit, trying to 
persuade " Martin," 
— the bear is always 
"Martin"— to climb 
for the twentieth 
time the lopped tree 
that rises in the 
middle. The water- 
plants flower in the 
same low, stifling 
hothouses, beside or- 
chids of strange, 
exotic shapes, and 
it is in the same 
old-fashioned theatre 

where so many illustrious savants have held forth that Mine. 
Madeleine Lemaire, who discourses of roses, poppies and 
pansies as admirably as she makes their colours live again 
on her canvases, teaches a charmed and attentive audience 
of to-day to appreciate the divine beauty of flowers. In 

Curmer's volumes fine gentlemen, dressed like Alfred de 
6 




The Bear-Pit at the Jardin des Plantes 



82 



WALKS IN PARIS 



Musset exchange ceremonious bows with elegant ladies 
draped in Indian shawls in front of the " Entrance of the 
Great Conservatories"; the surroundings are unchanged, 
— the children are playing in the very same spots, and on 
the same wooden chairs the same grisettes, in almost 
identical costumes, sit reading novelettes of the same 




The Reservoir 

sensational sort. In 1842 it was Eugene Sue's Mysteres 
de Paris ; in 1906 it is the Movie aux beaux yeux by 
Pierre Decourcelle. 

This noble garden has always been in fashion. 
Founded in 1633 by Louis XIII. on a piece of waste 
land then used as a general receptacle for garbage, and 
entrusted to the direction of Gui de la Brosse, the Jardin 



THE JARDIN DES PLANTES 83 

des Plantes Medici nales — such was its original name — had 
many difficulties to struggle with at first. But Fagon, 
Tournefort, Vaillant, then Antoine and Bernard de 
Jussieu, and finally Buffon, 1 organise, augment and em- 
bellish the rt Jardin du Rot", When the Revolution comes, 
the Nation lays hands upon the " Museum d'histoire natu- 
relle," which it supplements with a menagerie formed out of 
the remains of the Royal collections installed by Louis 
XIV. on the banks of the Grand Canal 'in the Gardens of 
Versailles. Bernardin de Saint-Pierre in 1792 pleaded 
the cause of the poor animals which were dying of hunger. 
" Shall we kill them," he cried, " to exhibit their skele- 
tons ? That would be adding insult to injury ! " On 4th 
September, 1793, the collection is suddenly increased ; 
Geoffroy Saint- Hilaire, working in his study at the 
Gardens, is informed that two Polar bears, a panther, a 
pair of mandrills, a tiger-cat and several eagles are outside, 
at his door, claiming hospitality. The animals in fact 
were vagabonds, in search of a home ; by police orders 
three wandering Menageries had been seized and de- 
spatched to the Museum under conduct of their former 
proprietors, who had been bought out. Geoffroy Saint- 
Hilaire had the cages lined up under "his windows, fed 
out of his own pocket the unhappy starving beasts and 
raises the erstwhile showmen to the dignity of keepers ! 
Napoleon sends to the Menagerie the Stadtholder of 
Holland's elephants and the bears of Berne. 2 Every year 

1 Buffon, who counted among his most valued co-workers Daubenton 
and Lacepede, died 16th April, 1788, at the Jardin des Plantes, in the 
building fronting the Rue Geoffroy Saint-Hilaire. 

2 On 1st June, 1807, Geoffroy Saint-Hilaire writes to Prussia to ask 
" that advantage be taken of the position of our Armies at Berlin to obtain 
duplicates of the collection of fishes formed by M. Bloch " (Vente Chara- 
vay, Nov., 1906). 



8 4 



WALKS IN PARIS 



brings 



at the 

verse : 



its contribution of rare animals and precious 
minerals. The Jar din des 
Plantes is favoured in high 
quarters, augmented and embel- 
lished. On 9th July, 1827, the 
giraffe is presented to the King, 
and makes quite a Parisian 
event ; everything is a la giraffe, 
combs, brooches sleeves and 
sun-shades are all a la giraffe, 
and a fashion shop in the 
Passage du Saumon paints the 
giraffe on its signboard. There 
was even a ballad sung in Paris 
time, beginning with the verse— if it can be called 

C'est de l'acacia qu'elle aime a se nourrir, 




In the Maze 



and concluding : — 

Enfin dans tout Paris on aime sa presence, 
Et son sejour promit la paix et l'abondance. 1 

1 " 'Tis the acacia forms its favourite food. — In fact all Paris loves its 
presence, and its stav promises peace and abundance." 

There was also a song hummed about the streets, the last couplet of 
which ran as follows : — 

(Air : A la facon de Barbaii.) 
Filles et femmes aujourd'hui 
Ont tres belle tournure ; 
Tout un chacun en est seduit 
Voyant leur chevelure. 
On peigne beaucoup de frisons, 
La faridondaine, la faridondon, 
Tout est a la Girafe ici, 

Birib , 
A la facon de Barbari, 
Mon ami. 
(" Girls and women nowadays are dressed so smart ; every man is fascin- 




c 
o 
U 

TJ 

C 

Ur 

o 



- 



86 WALKS IN PARIS 

To every quarter of the world intrepid and unassuming 
French savants go forth into voluntary exile in order to en- 
rich thzjaniin des Plantes. Duvaucel, Chapelier, Jacque- 
mont, and how many other men, have died by the arrows 
of savages, serpent bites, Indian sunstroke and tropical 
fevers, to send home to their native land unknown beasts, 
mysterious plants, fairylike butterflies, rare birds, speci- 
mens hitherto missing in the herbaria. Something of 
their heroic seif-devotion, so simple-minded and beautiful, 
broods over this noble garden of which it has been grace- 
fully said : " It is a terrestrial Paradise a trifle old- 
fashioned, — flowers, beasts and men alike ; there is even 
the serpent, and trees you can pluck harmless apples 
from ".* 

The narrowness of the Paris streets before the nine- 
teenth century, the difficulties of moving from place to place, 
the lowness of the houses, made any wide general view or 
distant perspective impossible. But to make up for this, 
the Jardin des Plantes possessed a labyrinth, and this 
maze, and the belvedere that surmounted it was in the 
eighteenth century eagerly besieged on fete days. The 
Parisians could for once see Paris ! they would point out 
to each other Vincennes with its great Keep and square 
Towers, the Cemetery of Pere-la-Chaise, the heights of 

ated at sight of their pre.ty hair, which they curl into a hundred curls ; 
everything is a la Gtrafe here, after the fashion of Barbary, my friend.") 
1 Taine wrote in 1849 to Paradol : "Yesterday I was at the jfardni 
des Plantes ; I noted in a lonely corner a mound covered with common 
field grasses, young and green, growing wild and bursting into flower : 
the sun was shining brightly and I could see the inner life that circulates 
in these delicate tissues and invigorates the strong, upright stems ; the 
wind blew and set all this harvest of closely growing grasses waving, pro- 
ducing an effect of extraordinary transparency and beauty . . . and I 
could feel my heart beat high with pleasure ! . . ." 



THE JARDIN DES PLANTES 87 

Meudon, the windings of the Seine, the far off blue hills 
of Gentilly. . . . The labyrinth is still there and the scenery 
has not changed ; the crowd is there too, in the same place, 
exchanging the very same exclamations of wonder and 
admiration as they did a hundred years ago ! . . . A 
good-humoured horde, squeezed together in the most 
diverting confusion, still grins at the monkeys' antics, the 
otaries' wonderful dives and the prodigious yawns of the 
hippopotamus ; the elephant still goes on stuffing pounds 
and pounds of cakes 
into his big mouth, and 
the camel rolling his 
gentle, foolish eyes 
over a crowd of happy, 
admiring youngsters ! 
The climax of excite- 
ment is before the 
gloomy cages, too 
dark and too small, 
quite unworthy of Paris, in which the great felines are 
confined, while odious idiots poke in their ridiculous 
umbrellas and tease the poor imprisoned brute, dying 
by inches of decline behind the black bars of his 
prison. 

In the Museum of Anthropology, the crowd files past 
in fearful silence or talking in whispers before the rows 
of skeletons, the strange, uncanny looking reconstructions, 
reminding one in their colossal ignorance of an astound- 
ing answer given the painter Vibert some twenty years ago 
by an old man who served him as a model. 

" Come and sit to-morrow, Sunday, pere Sauvage ; I 
shall want you, to finish my picture." 




Watching the Bears 



88 WALKS IN PARIS 

" Out of the question, Monsieur Vibert ; to-morrow I'm 
going with the young ones to see my grandfather." 

11 Your grandfather ? Why, how old are you, pray ? " 

" Seventy-seven." 

" And you have a grandfather still alive ? " 

" Why, certainly ... in the Jardin des Plantes. . . . 
He's a skeleton, you know . . . not far from the man who 
killed Kleber . . . Sauvage le Marin. ... So once a 
month I go and see him with my grandsons. Oh! the 
officials all know us, and say : ' Ah ! you've come to see 
grandpapa ; all right, he's still there, same room, to the 
right ! ' " 

A series of fine, spacious buildings contains admirable 

collections, admirably arranged by the learned Curator, 

M. E. Perier, relics of earlier ages, mammoths, meteoric, 

stones. . . . All the same lovers of the Past will always 

regret the fascinating little rooms, style Louis XV., the 

ceilings hung with stuffed crocodiles and flying fish and 

sword-fish, where the old-time collections of the "Jardin 

du Roi" were exhibited. What a pleasant feeling of 

homeliness, what a quiet charm, there was about it all ! 

W T hat a perfect setting for the curiosities the grey panelled 

woodwork with its delicate carving ! The finest lepidoptera 

of all countries were to be seen there, from the glorious 

butterflies with a metallic sheen of the Indies and Americas 

to the moths from Fontainebleau that look like dead leaves 

of trees, yellow and withered ; there was to be found the 

great death's head hawk-moth, no less than the tiny blue 

butterfly of our French plains ! Time had powdered over 

as it were and lightly tarnished the marvellous brilliance 

of the original colours ; and it was better so. Too brilliant, 

they would have made a discord in their rather old-fashioned 



THE JARDIN DES PLANTES 89 

surroundings ; it was a pleasure the more to admire these 
jewels of the air lightly overspread with a gossamer film 
of the dust of ages ! . . . 

But dusk is falling; children's laughter and the song 
of birds fall silent ; the distant roar of a captive lion 
or tiger strikes the ear ; a wild dove darts back to its nest 
in the boughs of a pink chesnut ; the air is fragrant with 
scent; the blossoms on every tree waft to the earliest 
stars their last perfumed breaths, and the grey shades of 
night descend on the sleeping Garden. . . . 



UP THE SEINE 

FROM THE PLACE DE LA CONCORDE TO BERCY 

(^\ N a warm spring morning I know of no more de- 
^- > ^ lightful expedition than to take the boat at the 
Concorde and go up the river as far as the Pont d'Anster- 
litz. The views are both impressive and beautiful ; open 
the eyes and dream of the past, and Paris will tell us 
tale after tale of the magic of her mighty history ! 

On the left, the Garden of the Tuileries reflects the 
greenery of its Terraces in the water. Thence hurried 
courtier and cit in days gone by to applaud the nautical 
contests and water sports so much in vogue under Louis 
XIV., XV. and XVI.; thither resorted polite votaries of 
Nature to gaze at the sunset behind the hills of Meudon. 
It was a favourite place of assignation, — the gay and 
worldly part of the Gardens, just as the corresponding 
Terrasse des Feuillants was the place for politics and 
noisy discussion. 

On the opposite bank, in a line with other old hotels 
surrounded by gardens condemned alas ! to disappear 
very shortly, we pass the Chancellerie de la Legion d Hon- 
neur} an elegant edifice built to recall a Greek temple, — 

1 The Chancellerie de la Legion d'Honneur stands midway alorg the 
Quai d' Or say, and faces the Gardens of the Tuile ies across the river. It 
is now confronted on the east by the facade of the new Quai d'Orsay 

go 



UP THE SEINE 91 

originally the Hotel de Salm. A singularly enigmatic 
personage, by-the-bye, the said Salm-Kirburg, 1 a German 
Prince, — of a minute Principality ; " no one could deny him 
wit, but common sense, — not an iota ". 2 After wasting 
prodigious sums in reckless extravagance, his eccentric 
Highness finally and completely ruined himself in build- 
ing this charming mansion, where he expended the last 
remnants of his fortune in giving, in the year 1786, a 
superb fete, which became a by-word for the terrific crush 
of company that was invited. 3 Next year the architect 
Rousseau took over the hotel to cover his expenses and 
de Salm was now only the tenant at will ! Then comes 
the Revolution. Lafayette makes the Prince commander 
of a battalion, and the Hotel Salm is transformed into a 
Reformist Club. Events moved fast in those days ; the 
"citoyen Salm, ex-Prince of Germany," is interned at the 
Prison des Car/ties by order of Fouquier-Tinville, under 
the charge of lt being beneath the mask of patriotism 
only the secret agent of the German Coalition," and on 
5 Thermidor guillotined in the Place du Trone. The hotel 
was then offered as a lottery prize and won by a wig- 
maker's apprentice, Lieuthraud by name. 

Terminus of the Orleans Railway, an ornate and imposing, if rather 
too garish, edifice. The trains are conveyed thither from the old Quai 
d'Austerlitz station by electric locomotives through a tunnel running under 
the line of Quays on the south side of the Seine. [Transl.] 

1 " The Prince Salm is here, trying to sell everything and make a grand 
show; the Baron de Breteuil dec'ares he is only good for a couple of 
years more and will end in the hospital," writes the Marquise de Crequy 
in August, 1786. 

2 Mi-moires du Comtc dc Tilly, 1830, vol. ii., p. 238. 

:! ' - There was such a host of people there whom the Prince himself 
did not know that he said to me jokingly : ' Many folks who are here may 
very likely think I am invited to the ball too'." — E. Fournier, Chronique 
des Rues dc Paris, p. 144. 



92 



WALKS IN PARIS 



The origin of this individual's sudden and enormous 
fortune was more than suspicious. For several months he 
amazed Paris with his insolent extravagance ; he bought 
Bagatelle, gave his name to a new top-boot cut away in a 
particular shape, and kept Mile. Lange "on a footing of 
10,000 livres a day, payable in advance," — Peltier assures 




Building of the Hotel dc Sahn 

us of the fact. He gave a fete costing 1,200,000 livres! 
It was the triumph of the jonquil, — the ex-wigmaker had 
a special predilection for the flower in question ; the walls 
were covered, the tables decorated with it ; the scent was 
so overpowering that most of the guests felt ill. . . . Some 
weeks later, Lieuthraud was arrested, condemned as a 



UP THE SEINE 93 

forger to four years in irons, to be branded and pilloried. 
. . . The sentence, however, was not carried out and 
Lieuthraud disappeared without leaving a trace behind '. L 
Under the Directory the hotel was purged of these base 
associations, and was used by Mme. de Stael and Benja- 
min Constant for the sittings of the Cercle Constitutiomicl- 
while in 1804 Napoleon installed the Grand Chancellery 
of the Legion of Honour there. 

The building was to encounter even more sinister 
destinies; in 187 1, during the Commune, it was entered 
by the mob, profaned and devastated, and finally set on 
fire. It was not till 1878 that it rose again from its ashes, 
being rebuilt by a National subscription, — a voluntary con- 
tribution from the Members of the Legion of Honouu 

A little further on and still on our right hand, at the 
corner of the Quai and the Rue de Beaune, we pass the 
house, M. de Villette's, where Voltaiie died. It was from 
the Courtyard — still unaltered at the present moment — of 
this house on the very night of his death, 31st May, 1778, 
that Voltaire's body, wrapped in a dressing-gown and 
strapped on the back-seat of a travelling carriage, a fur 
cap pressed down on the poor head that jogged up and 
down at each shock of the wheels, set off, under the guise 
of a sleeping traveller, for the Abbey of Scellieres, in 
Champagne, where it was intended to bury it ! An un- 
commonly bad statue of the great man stands in front of 
the Institut,the frowningdome and sternly simple outline of 
which add a noteof seventy and dignity to this part of Paris, 

1 " What has become of him ? I cannot tell, but the river flows for 
everybody." — Arnault, Souvenirs cTun Sexagenaire, vol. ii., p. 308. 

2 " The fire of these exaked spirits having passed there, the Hotel de 
Salm was purified once more." — E. Fournier, Chronique des Rues de 
Paris, p. 144. 



94 WALKS IN PARIS 

otherwise so gay and humming with life. The sumptuous 
and venerable building recalls the grand Palaces of Papal 
Rome, where the grass grows in the deserted courts ; for- 
tunately there are the comic lions — poodle- lions, shall we 
call them ? — that grin so good-naturedly at the foot of the 
grand staircase, to temper the austerity of this noble edifice, 
so rich in illustrious associations. 

Wedged in between the Institut and the fine Hotel 
de la Monnaie (Mint) is a little Square that recalls the un- 
pretending Place of some quiet country town. Here Mme. 
Permon, mother of Mme. Junot, Duchesse d'Abrantes, 
lived up to the time of the Revolution in the house now 
occupied by a famous bookshop, the Librairie Pigoreau. 
It was on the third floor of this house, in the left-hand 
corner, in a room under the mansard roof, that Napoleon 
slept on the rare occasions when he had leave from the 
Ecole Militaire. Mme. Permon had opened her doors to 
the little Corsican officer. The same fine carved woodwork 
still adorns the walls of the reception rooms on the ground- 
floor, where the future Caesar came to talk of his hopes 
and ambitions, and the marble chimney-piece is unaltered 
before which Bonaparte used to dry his "great Puss-in-Boots 
top-boots, badly made and badly blacked, and which 
smoked tremendously," declares Mme. d'Abrantes in her 
Memoires. On the left, the Louvre displays its noble per- 
spective. We mark the little gilded balcony from which 
Charles IX. did not fire on the people on St. Bartholo- 
mew's Day, 24th August, 1572, for the very good reason 
that at that date the said balcony was not built. 1 

1 The story is well known. Tradition would have it that Charles IX. 
on the night of St. Bartholomew fired with his own hands on his subjects 
from one of the windows of the Louvre lacing the Quais. The tale was 
sedulously repeated by Mirabeau and other orators of the Revolution, and 



UP THE SEINE 95 

The Seine at this point broadens out magnificently, 
and behind a clump of greenery from which seems to rise 
in the luminous background the tapering spire of the 
Sainte-Chapelle, opens the glorious, the incomparable 
panorama of the extremity of the Island of the Cite. 
The river divides, and the Pont-Neuf joins the two halves 
of Paris, — the old Pont-Neuf the dedication stone of which 
Henri III. laid when the first pile rose above the surface 
on the side of the Augustins. 

That day the King was a sorry sight to see ; he had 
that very morning buried at Saint-Paul the best beloved 
of all his favourites, Quelus, who was dead of his wounds 
received some weeks before at the famous " Combat of 
the Minions''. 1 The mocking Parisians declared the new 

an inscription was engraved on the wall in 1795 to mark this particular 
window: " C'est de cette fenetre que l'infame Charles IX., d'execrable 
memoire, a tire sur le peuple avec une carabine," — " From this window 
the infamous Charles IX., of execrable memory, fired on the people with a 
musket." Six years later, however, it was erased, on the discovery that 
this portion of the Louvre was not built till the reign of Henri IV. ! [Transl.] 
1 This famous combat was fought out in the Marche-aux-Chcvaux, 
on the site of the destroyed Palais dcs Toumclles, between the King's 
{Henri III.) "minions," Quelus, Schomberg and Maugiron and three of 
his enemy the Due d'Anjou's favourites, Antraguet, Ribeirac and Livarot. 
Of the King's champions two were killed on the spot ; the third, Quelus, 
died of his wounds, after lingering on for some weeks at the house of 
Bussy d'Amboise, whither he had been carried after the fight. For a vivid 
account of the whole incident read Dumas' " Lady of Monsoreau," — par- 
ticularly the two concluding chapters of Part III. " The Fatal Combat," 
in Methuen's " Complete Dumas," translated by Alfred Allinson. " The 
King was inconsolable. He erected three magnificent tombs, on which 
were carved in marble life-size effigies of his friends. He endowed masses 
for the repose of their souls, commending them to the prayers of the priests, 
and at the close of his own prayers, both morning and evening, he added 
this couplet : — 

Que Dieu recoive en son giron 

Quelus, Schomberg et Maugiron ; 

— May the peace of God environ 

Quelus, SchoTiberg and Maugiron." [Transl.] 




a. 



UP THE SEINE 



97 



bridge should be called the Bridge of Tears ! The feeling, 
however, did not last, and after Henri IV. had inaugur- 
ated it, on which occasion 'it was still far from firm, and 
sundry folks, by way of making trial of it, had broken 
their necks and tumbled into the River,' l the Pont-Neuf 
became the centre of Parisian life and gaiety. There 




Traffic on the Pont-Neuf (from a fan) 

Tabarin tells his idle tales, Mondor sells his balm and 
Loret comes to gather his daily batch of news. It was a 
saying in the eighteenth century that it was impossible to 
cross the Bridge without coming across a Monk, a white 
horse and two women of gallantry. There the volunteer 
enrolment took place in 1792, and the alarm-gun sounded 

1 " Memoiresdel'Estoile " {Journal dc Henri IV., vol. viii., pp. 83, 84 ; 
edition Jouaust). 

7 



98 WALKS IN PARIS 

in the tragic days of Revolution. If the masks that 
run along its friezes wear so mocking and cynical a face, 
it is because, for so many ages they have watched the 
endless comedy of Parisian life defile past. . . . 

Facing the Statue of Henri IV., at the entrance of the 
Place Dauphine, in the corner house of the Quai de 
I'Horloge, are the windows on the second floor where Mme. 
Roland dreamt such pleasant dreams as she watched the 
reflexions of the clouds in the waters of the Seine. . . . 
These visions of her girlhood she beheld once more for 
the last time one cold October day ; her hands were 
tied, her locks cut short, and Samson's ill-omened tumbril 
was carrying her to the scaffold. From the corner of the 
Quai de la Megisserie she cast a last farewell look at the 
surroundings of her happier days, as the melancholy pro- 
cession, turning down the Rue de la Monnaie, made for the 
Rue Saiut-Honore', only to halt in the Place de la Revolu- 
tion, at the foot of the guillotine, before the Statue of 
Liberty ! 

Leaving on one side the smaller arm of the river, 
where the heavy barges seem to lie asleep at their moorings 
alongside the guais, and which is closed in by the weir 
and sluice gates beside the Monnaie, fringed with a line 
of white foam, we follow the main stream that mirrors 
the tall pointed Towers of the Conciergerie. Under the 
combined attacks of rain, wind, dust and damp, a sort of 
black leprosy has spread in uneven patches over the 
old stones forming the sustaining wall of the Quai de 
I' Horloge, in front of the Conciergerie and the Palais de 
Justice. While some parts have whitened, others have 
darkened in diversified patterns and random streaks. A 




•4-> 



••^3B5»"»1 



ioo WALKS IN PARIS 

strange, indescribable effect is the result. Looking across 
from the Quai de la Megisserie on the other side of the 
Seine, and half shutting one's eyes, it is quite easy, with 
the exercise of a little imagination, to conjure up a mar- 
vellous panorama of an Eastern city. Towers and castles 
and minarets rise up in orderly presentment, and the eye 
soon comes to make out clearly streets and squares and 
houses, — a whole architecture of phantasm emerges, a 
systematic plan develops. How often have we not, — a 
few sympathetic friends and I — amused ourselves with 
endless wanderings in this dream-city that lies outspread 
between the brink of the river and the parapet of the 
Quai de P Horloge ! 

In front is the Theatre du C hate let, of which a friend 
said in conversation with Holstein, its first Manager, in 
1862:— 

" What a unique position, to be sure ! That enormous 
house to ruin you, — right opposite the Tribunal de Com- 
merce to file your petition, the Palais de Justice close by 
to sentence you, and at your very feet the Seine to drown 
yourself in ! . . . you might have searched far before 
finding anything better ! " 

In front of the Theatre, the gilded " Victory " which 
crowns Palmier's elegant fountain, — raised by Napoleon I. 
to the glory of the Army of Egypt, — stands out bril- 
liantly against the purple mass of the Tour Saint-Jacques. 
Next we come to the charming group of poplars, weep- 
ing-willows and ashes which overshadows so prettily the 
little port nestling by the waterside close under the Hotel 
de Ville. Successive Prefets de la Seine have made their 
name renowned in connexion with the great city. Baron 
Haussmann destroyed miracles of art, but he brought 



UP THE SEINE 101 

light and air and health into countless haunts of physical 
and moral wretchedness, while MM. de Rambuteau and 
Poubelle see their memory linked indissolubly with the 
hygienic improvement of the capital; M. de Selves has 
chosen the graceful task of endowing Paris with refresh- 
ing shade ; with consummate taste he offers the fair Paris- 
iennes of to-day sweet bouquets of green leaves ! While 
the engineers, — that Vandal horde — are mercilessly fell- 
ing the old trees, that once made Paris the most delight- 
ful of gardens, M. de Selves, smiling and indefatigable, 
labours to repair their odious work, and thanks to him, 
the banks of the Seine will still preserve their incompar- 
able girdle of greenery. 

On our right, beyond the Tribunal de Commerce, — 
a vile square building, the heavy dome of which gives the 
idea of a captive balloon, the ugly zinc roofs of the 
M arclie-aux- Fleurs and the gloomy grey walls of the 
Hotel Dieu are a poor substitute for the old labyrinth of 
picturesque streets which once occupied all this part of 
the Cite and descended in happy confusion to the very 
water's edge. Before us the Quai Bourbon and the lie 
Saint-Louis seem evoked by some magician's wand, and 
behind us towers Notre- Dame ; we sail between two en- 
trancing visions. 

The Quais on either hand, those famous quays where 
the bouquinisies cases crown the parapets and the shady 
trees are full of twittering sparrows, roll past in stately 
procession. Boats crowded with passengers, tugs, barges, 
huge lighters pass us, while on the banks, beside the 
Octroi offices, the ports where the heavy traffic discharges, 
the bathing establishments, the floating pontoons gaudy 
with advertisements, some of the oddest people in Paris 



UP THE SKINi: 103 

practise a hundred queer trades. Here they clip poodles 
and shave longshoremen, card mattresses and deal in cigar- 
ends, and sell gentles to the indefatigable anglers who 
quarrel for the outlets of the most offensive sewers. Steve- 
dores, naked to the waist, cross with measured tread, 
carrying heavy loads, the frail planks that connect the 
cargo-boats with the shore; carters of sand look as if 
they were digging out cataracts of molten gold ; women 
crowd in and out of the wash-houses. Drays are being 
loaded up and barrels rolled, the customs officers keeping 
watch on all this host of workers, while along the shores 
incorrigible loafers lie derelict, snoring in the sun. 

Passing by the Arcade Bretonvilliers and the ex- 
treme point of the He Saint-Louis, we sail along the in- 
terminable Halles aux Vins, — " those catacombs of thirst ". 1 
To our left hand the Pont de I'Estacade cuts the Seine 
with its barrier of blackened beams, near the monument 
raised to the illustrious sculptor Barye by the love and 
loyalty of his admirers, on the very spot where that 
sublime artist, misunderstood, insulted, and in the power 
of his creditors, used to come at the twilight hour, sallying 
out from the Jardin des Plantes or his modest studio on 
the Quai dAnjou, to forget his sorrows before the won- 
drous panorama of Paris, — the same fickle Paris, which 
a little later was to salute in him one of the most gifted 
masters of contemporary Art ! . . . 

We will stop at the Pont d Austerlitz, in front of the 
gates of the Jardin des Plantes, the old, delightful Jardin 
des Plantes of our childhood, fragrant with apple, plum 
and almond blossom. . . . 

Yonder, in the far-off grey distances, is Bercy. Nearer 

1 E. and J. de Goncourt, Mancttc Salomon, vol. i. 



104 WALKS IN PARIS 

at hand, tragic corollary of the great city so full of fevered 
desires and hates, covetousness and passion and madness, 
rises the black, gloomy dome of the Salpetriere, which 
like a beacon of wretchedness and suffering, dominates 
all this melancholy district, — the Salpetriere where they 
lock up, as Goncourt says, " the women who are madder 
than the rest ". Further away again looms Charenton, 
dedicated to the other sex ! 

But then, it would be a sad end to a most glorious 
trip, if the bright horizon, barred with trails of luminous 
smoke and flooded with sunbeams did not speak to us 
of joyous hope and happy work and radiant beauty! 



M||^mm^m - =— - :•; —■•,•-. 




Pont dc VEstacade 



NOTRE-DAME AND NEIGHBOURHOOD 

THE PLACE DU PARVIS— THE RUE CHANOINESSE— THE 
TOUR DAGOBERT 

ON the 19th October, 1784, the coche d'eau, or public 
fly-boat, which in fifty hours conveyed passengers 
from Burgundy to the Capital moored as usual alongside 
the quay of the Port Saint-Paul — the next up stream after 
the Pont de la Tournelle. Lost amid the throng of dis- 
embarking travellers, five young Provincials, under the 
escort of a Brother of the Order of St. Francis of Paul, 
stepped across the narrow plank connecting the boat with 
the shore, which was crowded with wayfarers, porters, 
boatmen, trunks, casks and lumber. They were five pupils 
from the Preparatory College of Brienne on their way to 
the Royal Military School at Paris to complete their 
studies and win the rank of officer. The smallest and 
slightest of the five lads was gazing with great startled 
eyes at the dazzling spectacle of this city of his 
dreams. Landing where he did, the first thing he saw 
was the twin towers of Notre-Dame, — the marvellous 
building where twenty years later, on 2nd December, 
1804, Pope Pius VII., officiating in full pontifical state, 
surrounded by Cardinals, Bishops, Marshals, Generals, and 
all the great officers of the Body Politic, to the sound of 
salvoes of artillery and the clash of bells, was to stand before 

the great West Door, all gay with flags, patiently waiting 

106 



NOTRE-DAME AND NEIGHBOURHOOD 107 

to receive the little Brienne schoolboy, now known as 
the Emperor Napoleon, and about to assume the crown 
of the ancient French Kings ! 

Notre-Dame 1 had changed and grown in the course 
of centuries just as Paris had.' 2 The Pope Alexander 
III. had laid the first stone in 1163 above the ruins of 
two Chapels, Saint-Etienne and Sainte-AIarie, themselves 
built originally on the site of a Temple dedicated by the 
Romans to Jupiter, as is proved by the remains of a stone 
altar, erected in the reign of Tiberius by the boatmen of 
Paris. The work was long and tedious, the building 
being still unfinished in 1247. Philippe le Bel entered 
the edifice on horseback in 1304, clad in half armour, 
without hauberk or leg-pieces, which he wore at Mons- 
en-Puelle, where he had triumphantly repulsed a furious 
night attack of the Flemings. An equestrian statue set 
up before the altar of the Virgin recalled the famous 
incident. All the notable events of French history 
have been commemorated in one way or another at 

1 Notre-Dame de Paris is one of the four supremely great Cathedral 
Churches of Northern France which illustrate the highest perfection of 
art in this the homeland of Gothic architecture, the other three being 
Chartres, Reims and Amiens. It is fully worthy to rank with these ; yet 
at a first superficial view the exterior, or at any rate the western facade, 
is often found disappointing. This is due to several causes : the absence 
of spires, as originally intended, crowning the west towers, the extension 
of the old " parvis "' into a vast Place surrounded by huge and lofty build- 
ings, and the fact that the level of the ground before the west doors, which 
as late as 1748 were approached by thirteen steps, has been gradually 
raised to that of the floor of the Church. 

Founded in 1163, the choir was consecrated in 1182, though the 
Western towers and nave were not completed before the beginning of the 
thirteenth century, — the great age of Church building. [Transl.] 

2 It was Bishop Maurice de Sully who first resolved to erect a single 
magnificent church on the ruins of the two others. Seconded by faith r 
zeal and genius, his enterprise was crowned with entire success in a re- 
latively short space of time. — Abbe Duplessy (Paris Riligieux). 



NOTRE-DAME AND NEIGHBOURHOOD 109 

Notre- Dame. 1 Thither Henri IV. came on 22nd March, 
1594, on the famous occasion when he spoke the his- 
toric words, " Paris is well worth a mass". He marched 
in grand procession ; Vitry and d'O, who headed the 
cortege, had just had twenty-five or thirty rebels, incorrig- 
ible Ligueurs, pitched into the Seine. There was every 
cause for rejoicing! Thither Louis XIII., bursting with 
surprise and delight, hastened to thank Heaven for granting 
him an heir after twenty-three years of married life. There 
Louis XI V. celebrated all the victories won by his Generals, 
and the Marechal de Luxembourg, after gathering in a 
bountiful harvest of the enemy's colours, earned the 
glorious nickname of Tapissier de Notre-Dame, %l Decorator 
of Notre-Dame". On 10th March, 1687, Bossuet pro- 
nounced the funeral oration of the Great Conde. Louis 
XVI., Marie- Antoinette, Madame Elisabeth attended in 
1784 to give thanks for the birth of a Dauphin. Then the 
Revolution broke out, but at first respected Notre-Dame. 
On 27th September, 1789, Claude Fauchet, in an im- 
passioned oration, blessed all the flags of the National 
Guard massed about the High Altar. The Golden Age is 
still with us. But, after panegyrising the " God of all good 
Jacobins," after communicating with " tricoloured wafers," 

1 Other notable events connected with the Cathedral Church of Paris 
are : — 

10th August, 1239. — St. Louis brings the Crown of Thorns to Notre- 
Dame. 

21st May, 1271. — Funeral of St. Louis. 

10th April, 1302. — The first " States General " met at Notre-Dame. 

17th November, 1431. — Henry VI. of England is crowned King ot 
France. 

4th April, 1560. — Coronation of Mary Stuart. 

10th February, 1638. — Vow of Louis XIII. 

23rd October, 1668. — Abjuration of Turenne. 

Abbe Duplessy (Paris Religieux). 



no WALKS IN PARIS 

after writing in the 33 rd Number of the Lett res Patrioti- 
ques, — " No, the Father of Mankind cannot be aristocrat ; 
is not the rainbow that crowns his majestic head a fine, 
gay cockade of the Nation's colours ? " after demanding 
the unlocking of the tabernacles in the churches, — " Our 
God must not be imprisoned,- He must be as free as we 
are ourselves," — after all this, the Revolution modified his 
opinions and the churches were closed for religious 
worship. Notre-Dame was dedicated to the cult of the 
Goddess of Reason, represented with much grace and 
dignity by Mme. Momoro, wife of the printer of that 
name, or Mile. Maillard, of the Opera. 

On 10th November, 1793, there is a bonfire before the 
Great Doors of Breviaries, Missals, the Old and New Testa- 
ments ; this done, the rabble pours into the Church, — 
to find an imposing mise en scene. In the nave rises a 
mountain crowned with a temple, on either side busts of 
philosophers, on the slope a rock supporting a circular 
altar on which burns the torch of Truth ; two rows of young 
maidens sing round the Deity, and all present, " thrilled 
with emotion, take oath to be faithful to the Divinity." 
But the triumph of Reason is, once again, short-lived, and 
her temple, at first let off to a master-cooper to store his 
empty casks in, remains closed down to 1802. 

Since then the great Metropolitan Church has been 
associated with all the joys and sorrows, all the public 
festivals, of Paris, while its exterior aspect has altered 
hardly at all. 1 

x 3oth January, 1853. — Marriage of Napoleon III. 
4th June, 1871. — Funeral of the victims of the Commune. 
1st July, 1894. — Obsequies of President Carnot. 
23rd February, i8gg. — Obsequies of President Felix Faure. 

Abbe Duplessy {Paris Religieux). 




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ii2 WALKS IN PARIS 

The same cannot be said of its surroundings. In 
former days Notre-Dame stood midway between two 
edifices symbolising Religion and Charity. The cloister 
occupied all the left flank of the Cathedral, of which it 
was an extension, with special access from the interior by 
the exquisite little Porte Rouge, still in existence ; the 
Archbishop's Palace abutted on the right side. Under 
the Terror, it was used as an Infirmary for the female 
prisoners who were brought from the Conciergene on account 
of sickness ; above all, it was the place of detention of the 
wretched women who pleaded pregnancy in mitigation of 
immediate execution. The building, after being sacked 
again and again, finally disappeared in 1831. 

Down to the year 1868 there lay in front of Notre- 
Dame a small Square or Parvis, restricted it may be in 
dimensions, but imposing in virtue of its surroundings. 
The vast buildings of the Hotel-Dieu, the Archbishop's 
Palace, the erections appertaining to the church, formed a 
harmonious frame, a sort of vestibule, to the Cathedral, 
with their old grey stones. It was there the pomp of 
processions rolled on to the great West Door. Rosa 
Bonheur never forgot the deep impression she received 
as a girl at the sight of " Charles X. with his equine pro- 
file" heading the Royal Procession as it filed past the 
Hotel-Dieu on the fete-day of St. Louis. He was accom- 
panied by the Duchesse d'Angouleme, the Duchesse de 
Berry and all his Court. To the sound of chanting, the 
King advanced beneath the plumed canopy, the crown 
of France on his head, bearing the globe and sceptre with 
grave solemnity, wearing an ermine cloak with gold fleur- 
de-lys about his shoulders. He was escorted by ushers 
carrying on cushions the insignia of Royalty and the keys 



NOTRE-DAME AND NEIGHBOURHOOD 113 

of the N city of Paris, while Lifeguardsmen, kneeling on one 
knee, lined the way. 

The whole charm of the little Square has been de- 
stroyed : the Place du Parvis exists no more. To-day it 
is a vast Siberian steppe, icy-cold in winter, blazing-hot in 
summer, bounded on one side by the new Hotel- Dien that 
has more the air of a slaughter-house than anything else, 
and on the other by a meagre strip of garden from which 
emerges a heavy-looking statue of Charlemagne gazing 
with horror at the appalling ugliness of the barracks of 
the Cite which really baffles criticism. The old Hospital 
of the Hotel-Dieu, which occupied the site of this garden, 
was of a sufficiently grim and forbidding aspect, and ter- 
rible legends were current about its deadly wards, where 
the sick were crowded so shockingly that the same bed 
would be made to hold four fever patients. We looked 
with terror at those black, ill-omened walls with their 
crumbling arcades and tumble-down oriels overhanging- 
the Seine, forming that sordid but picturesque jumble of 
ruins of which Meryon has left us a record in a striking 
series of etchings. 

The whole of the Pointe Notre-Dame, the eastern ex- 
tremity of the tie de la Cite —Hotel-Dieu, Archbishop's 
Palace, Cloister, — rose straight from the waterside, without 
any intervening quays, so that its buildings and gardens, 
its windows and lights, were reflected in the stream. All 
about Notre-Dame was settled a population almost exclu- 
sively clerical, ecclesiastical, monastic ; priests, preachers, 
monks, choirmen, sacristans, filled not only the Cathedral 
itself, but also the ten little Chapels half-hidden under 
its prodigious bulk. We can imagine the deafening, 
metallic din of all the bells, — angelus, passing-bell, tocsin, 



NOTRE-DAME AND NEIGHBOURHOOD n 5 

curfe\ V , ] — and appreciate Boileau's lines on these disturbers 
of -his quiet: — 

Qui, se melant au bruit de la grele et des vents, 
Pour honorer les morts font mourir les vivants. 2 




^w? u abGlai , S ' namC f ° r the CitS '-" Llle Sonnante." [Transl.] 
W hich, mingling with the rattle of the hail and bluster of the winds 
to honour the dead, are the death of the living." 



n6 WALKS IN PARIS 

Yet, a little further, on the ground now occupied by 
the Marche au Fleurs and the Hotel-Dieu, and we reach 
the site of many haunts of old-time frolic, — the Glatigny, 
or Val d Amour, the Rue aux Feves where Eugene Sue 
locates the horrible thieves'-kitchen of his Mysteres de 
Paris, the Rue de la Licorne, in which lurked the famous 
cabaret of the Pomme de Pin, renowned by Rabelais 
"amongst the deserving taverns haunted by the scholars 
of Paris ". There Villon declaimed the charms of " Blanche 
the cobbler's daughter " and the rare good points of the 
k< buxom sausage-seller at the corner ". The Rue des Trois- 
Canettes, the Rue de la Calandre and the Rue Cocatrix 
completed this labyrinth of alleys of " high-spiced odour" 
and dubious reputation. 

What is left of this highly picturesque bit of old Paris ? 
In the Rue Massillon, facing a hideous modern house, is the 
entrance at No. 6 to a small interior Courtyard, damp 
and ill-paved. The building has a grim, cross-grained, 
Provincial look ; crossing the court and diving down an 
echoing stone passage, you discover a massive staircase 
of carved oak of the days of Henri IV. Small raga- 
muffins coming back from school, bustling housewives 
loaded with parcels, climb the steps where once elegant 
cavaliers swept the floor with their plumes and roused 
the echoes with their clattering spurs. The penetrating 
odour of a red-herring grilling over a petroleum stove 
succeeds the savoury fumes of rich repasts once cooked 
with pious care in honour of stout and wealthy Princes 
of the Church. 

Following the Rue Massillon we soon reach the Rue 
Chanoinesse, made famous by Balzac When he selected 



NOTRE-DAME AND NEIGHBOURHOOD 117 

this street as the dwelling-place of Mme. de La Chanterie 
the great novelist found the precise setting most appro- 




Rue Chanoincsse 



priate for his dubious heroine ; Mme. de La Chanterie was 
in fact Mme. de Combray, that most irrepressible of 
conspirators, mother of another amazing personage, Mme. 



n8 WALKS IN PARIS 

Acquet, guillotined at Rouen in the Place dn Vieux- 
Marche on 6th October, 1809; "dressed in a huzzar's 
jacket," l she had borne a hand in the attempted robbery 
of the mail conveying the Government moneys ! As a 
matter of fact Mme. de Combray never lived in Paris ; 
but Balzac has so ingeniously interwoven in his story the 
localities connected with this strange old figure living a 
recluse life made up of dreams and memories of the past, 
that the Rue Chanoinesse is as it were impregnated with 
associations of her doings. 2 

At the date of the great reconstructions which, towards 
the end of the Second Empire, gutted the whole Quarter, 
the Rue Chanoinesse was almost entirely spared. 3 Closely 
shut in, narrow and winding, it gives us a very good idea 
of what these damp, silent streets were that lay drowned 
beneath the vast shadows of the Cathedral. The houses 
are grey and gloomy, though one or two old mansions 
of the seventeenth century, in which a few scattered trades- 
men have installed their businesses, strike a note of life 

1 G. Lenotre, Tournebut (Perrin, editeur). 

2 By a happy coincidence M. Andre Hallays, the eminent historian, 
wrote only the other day: " No sooner are you set down in a town which 
Balzac has made the scene of one of his romances than you inevitably 
start on the discovery of the quarters he has described, the houses where he 
has lodged his characters, and supposing you light upon an old inhabitant, 
you feel bound to ask him if he knew as a boy the personages created 
by the writer. Indeed you are convinced these individuals existed some- 
where else than in Balzac's brain. It is a diverting sport, not involving 
the smallest risk to Balzac's fame, — quite the contrary." — Journal des 
Debuts : "En flanant," 12th October, 1906. 

3 The Rue Chanoinesse has other associations as well. The learned 
M. de Rochegude in his Guide pratique a travers le vieux Paris (Practical 
Guide through Old Paris) notes: "The Cardinal de Retz lived, it is said, 
at No. 17. — No. 16, site of Racine's house. — 14, Bichat's house. — 10, site 
of the house where Fulbert lived, terrible uncle of Heloise, — Abailard's 
Heloise." 



NOTRE-DAME AND NEIGHBOURHOOD 119 

amidst these old-world surroundings. If we enter No. 
18, we shall find one of the most important industrial con- 
cerns in Paris has established its stores there. The 
glazed courtyard is half blocked with agricultural imple- 
ments, tables, chairs, garden-seats. At the far end is a 
low-browed door, giving access to a little Gothic tower 
of the fifteenth century, the Tour Dagobert. 

Climb the stairway of uneven bricks which leads to 
a narrow platform, and you will enjoy one of the most 
wonderful sights imaginable. Within a few yards of 
where we stand, still within range of the hum of voices, 
the noises and cries of a great city, shutting out Paris 
with its stony mass, vast and ravishingly beautiful, Notre- 
Dame rises from amid a confusion of low roofs, black, 
grey or grey-blue. The outlines of its twin towers show 
majestically against the sky. Crockets and carvings, 
angles of masonry and outstanding turrets, catch the 
light, which seems to star the old Cathedral Church of 
Paris with points of golden splendour. In between the but- 
tresses we get peeps of far-off blue sky, faint and fugitive. 
Flights of crows wheel screaming round the slim spire 
and over the decorated ridge-tiles of the roofs, while the 
strange monsters of the Apocalyptic vision which the 
carvers of an older day have perched on the stone balus- 
trades of the western towers, crane their grotesque heads 
and mocking faces over the mighty city that lives its 
eager life far below. 

It is a dazzling panorama of carved cornices, gable- 
ends, chimneys, bridges, streets, green clumps of trees. 
The outlines grow vague and indefinite on the horizon- 
line, where the Pantheon, the towers of Saint-Sulpice and 
Sainte-Clotilde are the conspicuous landmarks. In the 



120 



WALKS IN PARIS 



other direction the Seine glitters in the sun, a restless 
streak of flashing silver. Its waters are churned by the 
steam-tugs and bateaux-mouches, furrowed by the keels of 




a 
0* 



barges and boats, to where in the distance the eye can 
make out the great lighters laden with apples or millstones 
and covered in with huge grey tarpaulins, which lie along- 
side the Port aux Pommes. 



NOTRE-DAME AND NEIGHBOURHOOD 121 

Leaving the quaint Tour Dagobcrt, and taking the 
Rue de la Colombe, — along which once went the ancient 
Gallo- Roman wall encircling the Cite, — we will end our 
day with a visit to the ruins of the Chapelle Saint- Aignan^ 
No. 19 Rue des Ursins, an obscure sanctuary founded in 
the twelfth century by the Archdeacon Etienne de Gar- 
lande ; St. Bernard is said to have preached there. Under 
the Terror it was a harbour of refuge for the pious; there 
recalcitrant priests, in all sorts of odd disguises, — working 
masons, itinerant wine-sellers, National guards, coster- 
mongers, old clothes'-men, street-porters, used to say 
mass to numbers of the faithful whom neither Fouquier- 
Tinville's "beaters" nor the myrmidons of the Revolu- 
tionary Committees could terrify. 

A few steps to the right brings us to the Marche aux 
Fleurs. Bunches of gilliflowers, hyacinths, pansies, lilies 
of the valley, are piled along the dull grey parapets ; the 
pretty sweet-smelling flowers seem heaped — as for an 
offering — at the foot of the old Tour Dagobert, from which 
we can get so strange a view of that unparalleled wonder 
— Paris. 



AT THE PALAIS DE JUSTICE 

THE COUR DU MAI— THE BUVETTE DU PALAIS 

UNDER an arched gateway, behind heavy iron bars, 
to the right of the main entrance of the Palais de 
Justice, cowering beneath the masses of the monumental 
stairway that leads up to the great doors, lies a little 
square courtyard, damp and dark, sunk below the level of 
the Cour du Mai, with which it communicates by nine 
steps. Only a few years ago the broad flags with which 
it was laid were still covered with the greenish coating of 
moss and lichen, and rimmed vvith the stains of moisture 
and mildew, — the sort of paving we see in deserted 
cloisters ; it was a gloomy, almost funereal place. A low 
door, dingy, worm-eaten and dilapidated, guarded by 
double iron gates, half-eaten away with rust, could be 
discerned in the background, always hermetically closed. 
An iron balustrade, dating from Louis XVI., bordered the 
well-worn steps. The few who were aware what awlul 
tragedies this courtyard, so rich in terrible associations, 
had witnessed, sometimes came with hearts of ruth and 
respect to indulge in long day-dreams within the stone 
walls of the narrow enclosure. 

In the gloomy days of the Terror it was the wicket 
of the Conciergerie, and the only one at that time ! 

Then, at half-past nine in the morning, the hour 

122 



AT THE PALAIS DE JUSTICE 



123 



of the opening of the Revolutionary Tribunal, the top 
of the wall overlooking this sunk courtyard would 
be lined by a howling, vociferating crowd of men and 




o- 



women, — more women than men, who came, as to a play, to 
take station on the steps of the Great Stairway of the 
Palais, which afforded so convenient a coign of vantage 



124 



WALKS IN PARIS 



for viewing the drama that was daily enacted at the Prison 
gate. 

Bursts of fierce laughter and shouts of delight greeted 
the appearance of the fiacres conveying the prisoners to 
be ocked up, while the "watch-dogs of the guillotine" 
and " tricoteuses " from the Revolutionary clubs gazed 
hungrily at the ,unhappy wretches as they drove up 




Entrance Gate of the Conciergerie under the Revolution 

escorted by police officers, pikemen seated by the coach- 
man's side, representatives of Committees, underlings ot 
Fouquier-Tinville's. On the other hand, the throng loudly 
acclaimed jurymen who " voted straight," " file-firers," men 
like Trinchard, Villate, the ci-devant Marquis d'Antonnelle 
or the Antoine Roussillon who used to subscribe himself 
without more ado as " Roussillon, purveyor to the guil- 
lotine ! " 



AT THE PALAIS DE JUSTICE 125 

1 

But the great sensation of the day was in the afternoon, 

towards half-past three, when the tumbrils arrived. How 
many to-day? was the question ; and great was the dis- 
appointment when only two or three drew up. It was a 
matter of common knowledge that every morning the 
headsman Samson, anticipating the hearing, was in the 
habit of going for his orders to the Public Accuser, who, 
actually before judgment was delivered, indicated, plying 
his toothpick the while, the number who were to " go down 
yonder that day ". "Down yonder" meant the guillotine, 
and the tumbrils at twenty francs a piece— five francs be- 
ing for pourboire — were ordered accordingly. 

About four o'clock, the condemned filed out one by 
one through the grey door, surrounded by gaolers, gen- 
darmes, ushers of the Palais and headsman's assistants. 
All, men and women alike, had their haircut short in readi- 
ness and their hands bound behind their backs. Their 
fevered eyes, red with weeping, weak from the prison 
gloom, could hardly bear the dazzling light of day. They 
staggered and blanched under the insults, the jeers, the 
foul words, that were hurled at them from every mouth. 
This was how the unhappy creatures, going to their death, 
had to cross this ill-omened Yard and climb the steep 
steps, at the top of which Samson stood waiting for them 
in front of his tumbrils drawn up at the barred entrance. 
There it was the headsman, almost always dressed in a 
long-skirted brown coat and wearing a bulging high- 
crowned hat, identified his victims from the lists of death 
which he held in his hand, before binding them to the 
rails or tying them down on the benches, faces to the 
crowd which escorted the victims to the place of execu- 
tion. 



126 



WALKS IN PARIS 



All the condemned of all parties, Marie-Antoinette 
no less than Mme. Roland, Charlotte Corday and the 
Abbesse de Montmorency, Ce"cile Renaud smiling and the 




Conciergerie and Pont cTArcole 
Dubarry sobbing and dishevelled, Danton, Robespierre, the 
Girondists, the vile Hebert and the virtuous Malesherbes, 



AT THE PALAIS DE JUSTICE 127 

1 

the Marechal de Noailles and Camille Desmoulins, the 

bravest, the noblest, the maddest, all trod these flag- 
stones, passed out through that terrible gate. And this 
spot, the most tragic, the most pathetic, in all the Titanic 
drama of the Revolution, is to-day nothing more than the 
vestibule of the " Buvette du Palais" a cheap restaurant 
where lawyers lunch ! 

The place looks like a suburban wine-shop ; shrubs in 
green boxes, rhododendrons and spindlewoods, alternating 
with tin-topped tables painted yellow, are ranged with 
a foolish primness down the grim courtyard where the 
flagstones of 1793 have been replaced by an asphalt 
floor. The whole thing is vulgar, ugly, odious ; gone 
the narrow casements lighting on the left hand the Office of 
Registry and on the right the Turnkey's lodge, that ante- 
chamber of death where so many human beings have 
known the agony of impending dissolution ; thrown on 
the scrap-heap the bars and grated doors to which so 
many illustrious victims have clung ; destroyed the door 
of the famous Prison, the chief gaol of the Great Revolu- 
tion, — the door where the Queen felt so keen a stab of 
pain when she caught sight of the tumbril and its white 
horse, when her pride had expected the grace of being 
carried to her death in the coach of Louis XVI., — the door 
where Mme. Roland's dress caught. Now, renewed and 
repainted, with varnished panels and inlet mirrors, it 
opens upon a commonplace cafe-restaurant, duly provided 
with telephone, drinking-bar and dejeuners a prix fixe ! 

It was there that we met the other morning, at the 
invitation of one of the best-known members of our Bar ; 
and there, amid these prosaic surroundings, we evoked 



128 WALKS IN PARIS 

with feelings of tender, almost religious awe ) the agonis- 
ing scenes of other days. . . . Through the blue haze of 
cigar smoke we could see the wrought-iron rail of the 
steps which Marie-Antoinette, " in a thread cap without 
streamers or any sign of mourning," ascended on the 16th 
October, 1793, about half-past ten in the morning; "she 
sighed as she raised her eyes to heaven, but kept back 
her tears, which were ready to flow". Her last Lady of 
the Wardrobe was Rosalie Lamorliere, cook to the 
Turnkey Richard s wife, a humble servant-girl who used 
to say afterwards : " 1 left her without daring to say my 
goodbyes or make a single curtsy, for fear of compromis- 
ing or distressing her". 1 

Customers' hats and barristers' toques are hung up along 
the walls which once were lined with the pigeon-holes in 
which were piled the clothes and belongings, the poor 
memorials of the victims of the guillotine. We sat on 
lounges upholstered in padded American cloth occupying 
the spot where the wooden bench stood, clamped to the 
wall, on which the condemned were put to wait their turn 
for the " toilet ". This " toilet " was performed where now 

1 In the curious Memoir es de VIntcrnonce a Paris pendant la Revolu- 
tion, Monseigneur de Salamon relates that this Richard, the Turnkey, 
was full of humane consideration for him. '* . . . You s-hall have a stove in 
your room and you shall sleep on that poor woman's two mattresses , 
— he meant the Queen, — who died on the scaffold. . . . They cost me 
dear enough ; I had six months of prison at the Madelonnettes for 
buying them. . . . 

" One morning, when my door opened, I faw a pug-dog run into the 
room, jump up on my bed, sniff it over and scamper off. It was the 
Queen's dog, which Richard had adopted and treated with the greatest 
kindness. It came like that to examine the mattresses its mistress 
had used. I saw him do the same thing every morning at the same hour 
for three who'e months, and despite all my efforts I could never put my 
hards on the little creature." — Memoir es de Mgr. de Salomon, pp. 280, 
281. 



AT THE PALAIS DE JUSTICE 



I 2<) 



a stove of japanned metal supports an imitation china \ 
of imitation flowers ! 

Otherwise this commonplace eating-room, vulgarised 
as it all is, still preserves the old ground-plan and arrange - 



Small Yard. 

Cour dn Mai. 

Main Stairway leading to Palais de 

Justice. 
Guardroom. 
Entrance of the Conciergerie — 

double wicket. 
Window. 

Rotonde — Porter's lodge. 
Stove. 
Waiting-room of the Prison Regis- g 

try {Greffe). 
Registry (Greffe). 
Dungeon. 
Corridor. 
Dungeons. 
Dungeon where the Queen was first 

confined. 
Women's Courtyard. 
Bench— attached to the wall. 
Glazed partition. 
Table and chair of the Registrar 

(Greffier). j} 




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Plan of the Conciergerie 

ment of 1 793. At that time it formed two rooms, divided 
by an open partition. The first, on the right, communi- 
cated directly with the prison by a wicket-door now re- 
placed by an etagere littered with apples and pears, saucers 
and mustard-pots and hams in cut ; this was the Turnkey's 
9 



130 WALKS IN PARIS 

lodge. The second, on the left, cut in two by a row of 
wooden bars, formed the greffe or office for registering the 
prisoners. Beside the window were stationed the officers 
in front of their registers ; at the far end, with the " Con- 
stitutional " priests on duty in attendance, the condemned, 
their hair cropped and their hands tied behind, waited 
their summons to mount the tumbrils. Thus new arrivals, 
while the formalities of their admission were being com- 
pleted, were able to exchange a few words with the victims 
ready for the scaffold ! 

In his invaluable Memoires, the Comte Beugnot draws 
us a picture of this " living tomb," of the " mattresses spread 
on the floor where the wretches who were to die next day 
spent their last night on earth ; " here he saw them " stripped 
of their clothes, their necks made ready for the knife, but 
steadfast, full of scorn for all who came near them, doing 
their best to show a proud, contemptuous bearing." l It 
was in the room on the right, called the rotunda because 
of a semi-circular partition-wall on the opposite side of it, 
that the baskets were stacked in which the heads of hair, 
blond, brown or white, accumulated as they were cut off by 
the executioner's men under the superintendence of his 
factotum Desmorets. Thither the hairdressers of the Cite 

1 " To aggravate the torture yet further, a staircase leading to one of 
the halls of the Palais de Justice (I am not sure which) adjoins the wall of 
the Infirmary. Evidently the stairs lead to one of the Courts of the Re- 
volutionary Tribunal, for from five o'clock in the morning any of the sick 
prisoners who were able to sleep were woke up with a start by the uproar 
coming from the amateurs of sensation hurrying and crushing and fighting 
to secure the best places. This horrid disturbance, agitating for more than 
one reason, was repeated every day and went on far into the morning. 
Thus the first sensation that struck an invalid on his awaking was the 
dread it might be for the pleasure of gloating over his last moments that 
they were struggling over his head ! . . ." Souvenirs de 1793. — Memoir es 
du Comte Beugnot, vol. i., p. 191 ; ib., pp. 205, 206. 



AT THE PALAIS DE JUSTICE 131 

and the He Saint-Louis came to turn over the contents, 
weighing and valuing the shorn locks, making up a quota- 
tion for the day, as it were, the figure of which varied 
according to the quantity of the article offered for sale. 
. . . Towards the end of the Terror, in the days of the 
" big batches," the supply so far exceeded the demand 
that the price fell to zero ! 

Nowadays in this same vaulted hall magistrates, at- 
torneys, advocates take their lunch, the majority in bands 
and gowns. Everybody is pressed for time and asks 
hurriedly for the plat du jour ; to-day it is a stew with a 
fine Meridional aroma about it. Men smoke and laugh 
and argue, prophesy so and so will get off and swap good 
stories. . . . " Yes, comes on next week — Poincare against 
Millerand, it'll be worth hearing! " . . . " Worth hearing ! 
say worth going a hundred miles to hear ! " — -A suck- 
ing barrister bursts in like a whirlwind : "Quick! quick's 
the word ! it's twelve o'clock and Chenu is up in the First 
Court, I wouldn't miss it. . . ." 

Grave-faced jurymen, more solemn than any magis- 
trate, are there with their wives and children, who have 
come to see them in the exercise of their judicial functions 
and look deeply awed. Paterfamilias points out the celebri- 
ties of the Law ; with wondering eyes they watch Henri- 
Robert absorb two cups of tea before going up to the 
Assize Court, and stare their fill at Pierre Baudin, Maurice 
Bernard, Decori, Michel Pelletier, Vonoven, Brizard, while 
the moustachio'd waiters pass along the dishes with frantic 
haste. . . . " Hurry up ! the camembert to M. le Presi- 
dent !"..." A pear for the Magistrate sitting in No. 
4." — " Counsel want their coffee, quick-step there, come ! ' 
Silhouettes a la Daumier of lawyers' heads, with long 



132 WALKS IN PARIS 

bodies attached, great bundles of papers under their arms, 
show up black against the light of the windows. Barri- 
sters wag their square-cornered toques at each other ; brief 
orders and urgent messages are given and received , ex- 
cuses are muttered — " The fellow's more of a fool than a 
knave, I tell you," — " Poor devil ! I do assure you the 
whole thing's his wife's fault ! " 

Peals of ringing laughter rise from the groups of 
young law-students and re-echo from the vaulted roof, 
under which so many heart-breaking farewells have been 
exchanged, while the habitues of the Courts, registrars 
and ushers and clerks play interminable games of bridge 
and backgammon on the very spot where, behind a table 
encumbered with prison-registers, was installed the arm- 
chair occupied by Richard, the Head Turnkey of the 
Conciergei'ie, a person of no little importance and notor- 
iety ! From thence he exercised his anxious surveillance 
and pointed out the newcomers to his subordinate door- 
keepers and gaolers : " Smoke the griffin ! " he would call 
out in his masterful voice ; the order would be passed on 
from mouth to mouth, and then everybody proceeded to 
stare his hardest — so as to know him again — at the 
"griffin," in other words at the unhappy wretch who had 
just been registered as an inmate of the Prison. 

Friends and relations of the prisoners used to beseech 
the gaolers' kind offices near the window where in our day 
beginners try to get a good notice for themselves in the 
papers and a few tame cats, prowling for scraps under the 
tables bear a far-away — a very far-away — resemblance to 
the savage dogs which used to come and examine and 
sniff about the new arrivals, whose safe-keeping they 
shared with the gaolers. ... It is indeed a thing to 



AT THE PALAIS DE JUSTICE 133 

move one strangely to call up, as you sit in the little noisy, 
bustling cafe, the tragic memory of all the unfortunate 
beings who have tasted of the bitterness of death within 
these walls ! You cannot help asking yourself how it 
comes that in our enlightened days such a locality, — 
a place that should surely have been held sacred by men 
of all parties without exception, has been thus shamefully 
altered and profaned without any protest being raised at 
so odious and brutal an act of vandalism and sacrilege ! 



THE DEPOT OF THE PREFECTURE DE 

POLICE 

AT THE PALAIS DE JUSTICE 

THERE are many different ways of entering the De- 
pot of the Prefecture de Police, the commonest and 
least desirable being to come in between a couple of 
Gardes Municipaux. We think we may boast to have 
selected the best when we asked Maitre Henri-Robert", 
the eminent Advocate, to introduce us. We had agreed 
to meet at Mme. Bosc's, the robing-room so familiar to 
all frequenters of the Courts, and (to use a hackneyed 
phrase) " one of the few remaining salons where you can 
still hear good talk ". No vain display of luxury here ; three 
small, low-browed rooms, cramped and crowded with 
overcoats, bundles of papers, walking sticks, umbrellas 
and hats ; hanging on pegs along the walls, hundreds of 
barristers' gowns, creased and black and serious-looking, 
and on a shelf a row, an endless, everlasting row of 
barristers' toques. The place has been an institution for 
generations, and is one of the most familiar pieces of 
mechanism about the Palais de Justice ; all practising at 
the Bar, young or old, famous veterans or young re- 
cruits, have their correspondence — professional, official 
and "festive," addressed here ; naughty notes in pale blue 
envelopes lie pell-mell with horrid yellow packets bursting 
with law papers. Mme. Bosc's is the sanctuary where neo- 

i34 



DEPOT OF THE PREFECTURE DE POLICE 135 

phytes come to don their first " toga," and the worthy lady 
bestows on each a nice, clean pair of bands and an en- 
couraging smile ; it is their initiation into the temple of 
Themis. 1 

To-day the Palais wears an air of unwonted excite- 
ment ; conspirator-like groups collect in dark corners, 
and brief rallying words are passed on in a whisper — Ad 
augusta per august a. It is the election of members of the 
Administrative Council of the Bar. What more coveted 
honour than to be chosen by one's fellows, ones pro- 
fessional comrades and companions in work? Advocates 
have a just appreciation of the high dignity of their 
status and quite realise the importance of their votes. So 
the candidates are many, the vacancies few. The great 
guns' secretaries are beating up backward yoters, encourag- 
ing waverers, rebuking backsliders ; yesterday s elected 
candidates are haranguing on the claims of their colleagues 
of to-morrow, while the elbowing crowd of black gowns 
squeezes through the narrow gallery of the Premiere 
Presidence y where the voting urns stand. 

The witty and agreeable Batonnier, or President of 
the Council, Maitre Chenu, comes storming out lrke a 
whirlwind, very red in the face and panting. ... "I can 
stand no more ; it is two o'clock and I'm dying of 
hunger. . . ." Maitres Leon Renault, Ployer, Edmond 
Le Berquier, Brizard, Albert Danet, Martini, Decori, are 
the centres of imposing groups of sympathisers. Maitre 
Cruppi, cigar in mouth, much sought after and in the 
highest spirits, leaves us to slip on his gown : " Wait for 

1 Since the date when this was written (18th July, 1906), the " vestiaire 
Bosc " has been amaigamated with the second robing-room, the " vestiaire 
Midler," which under the same conditions fulfilled identical functions. 



136 



WALKS IN PARIS 



me a moment, I've got to vote, then we will go and ex- 
plore the old Palais". Maitres Michel Pelletier, Georges 
Claretie, Andre Hesse and Tezenas are laughing and chat- 
ting with Maitres Villard and Audouin, those " eminently 
Parisian " avoue's, while the students eagerly scan the seven 
notices stuck up on the wall showing the results of the 
first ballots. 

Quitting the 
busy ant-hill, we 
go upstairs, then 
downstairs, then 
along passages, 
then through 
endless under- 
ground corridors 
lighted after dark 
by electric globes 
and in the day 
time by loopholes 
dating from the 
sixteenth cen- 
tury. At length 
we reach the 
"Petit Parquet"; 
there the affable 
and learned M. 
Soubeyran de 
Saint-Prix, the 
juge a" instruc- 
tion, is so obliging as to constitute himself our cicerone. 
Our little band hurries through the long galleries of 
the Depot, on which the subterranean corridors open. In 




Gate of the Depot de la Prefecture de Police 



DEPOT OF THE PREFECTURE DE POLICE 137 

the gloom of the barred cells flashing eyes light up as we 
go by, nervous hands grip the iron bars, and in these 
keen glances, so full of supplication and anxious suspense, 
in these gestures of caged wild beasts, one can divine 
whole dramas of bitterness and hate and fear. But the 
well-known figure of Henri-Robert and the gigantic form 
of his excellent Secretary, Albert Dussart, reassure the poor 
wretches, whose eyes grow softer and less haggard. . . . 
In front of us is a door surmounted by an inscription that 
tears at the heart-strings : Lost or deserted children, — surely 
the worst of all the unhappy plights that find refuge under 
this melancholy roof! 

In the tiny garden that blooms between four gloomy 
walls we come across a pale slip of a child, a little girl with 
dark blue eyes ; timid looking and resigned, she is waiting 
for her mother, who " is to be discharged directly ". What 
pathos in the words ! We glance at each other with tears 
in our eyes, the little maid standing there smiling, still full 
of delight at the kind treatment she has received. By the 
paternal solicitude of the Prefet de Police, so gentle-hearted 
to the quite little ones, she has a new pair of boots, pretty 
toys and a pocket-handkerchief, a real pocket-handkerchief, 
of real linen, which she brandishes as a trophy. . . . We 
pass through this shelter of unfortunate childhood, where 
the hands of gentle and charitable women have been 
at pains to hide the wretchedness that rings it round. 
Polichinelle presides over a dormitory where ten little cots 
are ranged in a row, and Guignol has his stage and gallows 
on a chimney-piece, where a regiment of tin soldiers stands 
ready to march and counter-march. . . . 

We return to the Palais itself by the same subterranean 
ways which extend for more that 200 yards, meeting 



138 WALKS IN PARIS 

prisoners passing to and fro under guard ; in fact the traffic 
is incessant, a constant coming and going between the 
Depot and the " Petit Parquet ". Then we emerge suddenly 
into the corridors where the election is still going on at 
fever heat. What will be the result of the voting ? This is 
the subject of endless argument and discussion, and w r e 
catch a glimpse of a couple of " big-wigs " at it tooth and 
nail, with flashing eyes and gnashing teeth. . . . Then 
comes a round of hurrahs: "Victory! victory! Maurice 
Bernard is elected!" 

Maitre Cruppi, who had gone " to arrange a little com- 
promise before the President of the Tribunal," now returns 
to take us in tow and do the honours of the old Palais he 
knows so well. Once more we traverse a series of devious 
passages which bring us eventually to the Premiere 
Chambre de la Cour. Situated between the two pointed 
Round Towers facing the Quai de I ' Horloge, from which 
it is separated only by a room for consultations, this was 
formerly the " Gilded Chamber," the Grand 'Chambre of the 
Parlement of Paris. Built under Louis XII., it boasted a 
panelled ceiling "gilt with gold as fine as the metal of 
Dutch ducats " ; the walls were hung with blue velvet 
sprinkled with "gold fleurs-de-lys in high relief"; tall 
stained-glass windows admitted " only a half light reflect- 
ing the richest hues ; at the end of the hall was a great 
painting with texts of Holy Scripture underneath the 
crucifix ". 

It has been the scene of all that is most noteworthy 
in French History! Francois I. held a "bed of justice" 
there ; the Marechal de Biron was condemned to death 
there : it was there, in 1614, that the Parlement proclaimed 



DEPOT OF THE PREFECTURE DE POLICE i $9 

the majority of Louis XIII. On 16th August, 1655, 
Louis XIV., galloping in hot-foot from Vincennes, entered 
the Grand? Chambre booted and spurred, in full hunting 
costume. He took up his position under the Royal canopy, 
which stood permanently in the left corner of the hall, and 
peremptorily ordered the House to register the decrees 
11 without discussing them for the future ". This done, he 
marched out, and was never seen again in the Palais 
during all the sixty years of his reign. 1 By the irony of 
events, in the same hall where this exhibition of arbitrary 
force had been given, was held, on 12th September, 1715, 
the " bed of justice " at which was annulled the will of the 
Roi-Solcil in favour of the legitimated Princes. The little 
Louis XV., a child of five, but already " decorative," pre- 
sided over the assembly, seated on cushions patterned with 
the Royal fleurs-de-lys, under the care of h\s gouvernante, 
Mme. de Ventadour— at his feet the Regent, the Dukes 
and Peers of France, the Parlement. . . . Under Louis XVI. 
it becomes the scene of endless wrangling and fighting ■ 
the Revolution really began in the Palais. 

In 1 79 1 comes a complete transformation; a flat 
ceiling hides the elaborate panel-work of Louis XII., 
while the " unconstitutional " coats of arms are erased 
from the walls, the "monarchical" hangings torn down, 
the clerical emblems removed, the canopy of the " bed of 
justice" given to the flames! The ancient "Gilded 
Chamber" becomes (10th March, 1793) the " Revolution- 
ary Tribunal," the republican architects having made it 
into a great, gloomy, melancholy hall,— the Salle d '£galitL 

1 " La Grand "Chambre"— scene of Louis XIV.'s •• L Etat, c\st moi " 
("The State! lam the State'), pronounced on this same occasion. 
[Transl.] 




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DEPOT OF THE PREFECTURE DE POLICE 141 

At the end, in the middle of the wall, the bust of Socrates, 
flanked a little later by those of Marat and Lepelletier. 
The President sits underneath, on a raised platform, with 
his back to the river ; on his right the jury, on his left, 
crowded on rising tiers of benches, the accused, — and what 
a host they were ! . . . All the noblest of old France, 
Dukes, Marshals, Bishops, Princes, Charlotte Corday, the 
Girondins, Mme. Roland, have, in hundreds, undergone 
the mockery of a trial before departing for the Place de la 
Revolution or the Barriere-Renversee. It was indeed the 
ante-chamber to the guillotine. Dumas, Hermann or 
Coffinhall sit in the President's chair, while Fouquier- 
Tinville prosecutes, attired in long black coat, on his head 
a broad felt a la Henri IV. with black plumes waving 
above a great tricolour cockade. All wear round the 
neck, by ribands of the same universal tricolour, medals 
emblematic of their functions as judge or public accuser, 
and through the open windows on the President's left 
hand can be seen the conical roof of the Tour de 
r Horloge. 

Here it was that, on 14th October, 1793, at daybreak, 
the "Widow Capet" was called up for trial. The Queen 
of France had been duly brought from her dungeon into 
Court. Hermann was presiding judge ; among the jury 
were : Deydier, locksmith, Grenier-Trey, tailor, Gannay, 
wigmaker, Jourdeuil, ex-sheriffs officer, Trinchard, cabinet- 
maker, Chatelet, painter, Antonelle, ex-Marquis. Fouquier, 
his cruel eyes gleaming under his bushy black eyebrows, 
fulminated his accusations against the prisoner, whom he 

compared to " Messalina, Fredegond, Marie de Medicis " 

But it was reserved to Hebert, vilest of the vile, to bring 



142 WALKS IN PARIS 

out the Queen's noble bearing into still more marked 
relief by his attempt to vilify her with infamous and un- 
natural charges. . . . The proceedings, beginning at eight 
in the morning, went on without a break till four in the 
afternoon ; after an hour's adjournment they were re- 
sumed, only to end at four o'clock next morning. Except 
for one brief respite, the trial lasted therefore twenty 
consecutive hours ! l 

The night sitting was gloomy in the extreme ; a few 
faithful souls alone remained, mingled with the furies and 
* watch-dogs of the guillotine," to see out the "last moments 
of expiring Royalty ". The quiet was disturbed only by 
the passage of messengers who every quarter of an hour 
carried detailed reports to Robespierre of all that occurred 
in this long-drawn agony. ... At last, by the dim light 
of smoking lamps, sentence was pronounced, and the 
gendarmes cleared the court, while Marje-Antoinette was 
led back to her dungeon in the Conciergerie, — by the little 
door which can still be seen at the present day beside the 
stove, on the left. She was to be guillotined at a quarter 
after noon ; Fouquier threw himself, in his clothes, on a 
camp bed, while the harassed jurymen waited for daylight 
round a supper ordered beforehand at the cookshop 
within the precincts of the Palais ! . . . 

What tragic memories centre round the place ! how 
many unhappy men and women have come here to taste 
the bitterness of imminent death ! Yet there is absolutely 

1 " While her fate was being weighed in the balance, Marie- Antoinette 
kept moving her ringers over the arm of her chair, in apparent absence of 
mind, as if she had been playing the piano." — Hist. Parlcmentaire, vol. 
xxix., p. 409. 



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144 WALKS IN PARIS 

nothing left to-day to recall the dramatic selling of those 
days. The coved panels of the ceiling, once more exposed 
to view, are more brilliantly gilt than ever, and hardly 
harmonise with the commonplace simplicity of a court 
of justice. A part of the hall has been cut off towards 
the river, so that the apartment has lost its imposing pro- 
portions. 

Once they cut off heads there, — now they part ill- 
assorted married couples. ... It is very much less tragic 
. . . and sometimes they can be glued together again, — 
which heads and necks cannot ! 




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10 



UNDERNEATH THE SEINE 

IT is nine o'clock, and a brilliant sun illumines Paris. 
On the Quai aux Fleurs, where it is market-day, the 
country-women, expelled from their kiosques by the works 
in connexion with the new Metro, railway, have deposited 
their hampers of many-coloured flowers along the side 
walks, taking a stand within a few yards of the Palais de 
Justice, and just behind that eyesore, the Tribunal de 
Commerce, geraniums — red, pink and purple — calceolarias, 
heliotropes, hortensias, phloxes, petunias, mignonette, 
jasmine, stacked together at random, make up the most 
startlingly vivid and beautiful of Oriental carpets, spread 
out before a barrier of grey planking, giving entrance to 
a builder's yard in full activity. Here will be the future 
Underground Station for the Cite, whence will go the tube 
which, diving under the Seine at a depth of twenty-five 
yards and more, is to unite the left bank of the River with 
the right. Descending a slippery wooden stairway, steeper 
than a mill-ladder, and lo ! we find ourselves at the water's 
brink. 

A surprising and unexpected sight is spread before us, 
recalling certain Japanese prints in which the great artist 
Hokusai has represented in strange decorative lines "the 
hundred views of Fusiyama, the incomparable mountain 

of Yeddo". Seen through a forest of dark beams, cross- 

146 



UNDERNEATH THE SEINE 147 

pieces and buttresses, almost terrifying in their complexity, 
in a clear, translucent atmosphere, and with a gentle 
sound of plashing water, glide past boats and barges, 
steam-tugs and bateaux-mouches ; faraway the statue of 
Fame in the Place die Chdtelet shows a sparkle of gold 
against the green masses of the trees, while over our 
heads, as if suspended in the sky, is a vast grey-blue 
panorama of Paris, dominated by the majestic outline of 
the Tour Saint- Jacques. In the immediate foreground 
emerge great red tubes, all the lower half under water ; 
these are the chimneys required for ventilation and for 
the descent of the workmen labouring below the bed of 
the river. Trickling down embankments of wet earth, 
dirty water drips on our heads ; yet we remain where we 
are, lost in wonder, as though nailed to the miry ground. 
Cur feet rest on planks sticky with mud ; looking down 
through the interstices you can see the Seine rolling by 
with a swift, broken current, the swirl of which is plainly 
audible. 

Presently we enter a timbered gallery, the floor scored 
with the rails on which the little spoil-waggons run, and 
then turn into a vast cutting that bisects the Marche-aux- 
F/eurs, the paulonias in which show their tops over the 
palings that barricade us in. A group of staring idlers 
watch our little company crowded in front of some old 
stones. We must look very much like a class of hospital 
students round a patient's bed. 

Our professor is the eminent M. Heron de Villefosse, 
who is ready, of his kindness, to tell us all about the re- 
cent archaeological discoveries made in the soil of Roman 
Paris. Unearthed only a few hours since, these venerable 
stones, seventeen centuries old, are still so friable from 



148 



WALKS IX PARIS 



moisture they can only be touched with infinite care and 
precaution. Before us are ranged bas-reliefs — some intact, 
some in pieces — mutilated capitals, truncated columns, in- 
scribed pillars. M. de Villefosse has borrowed of M. Ch. 
Normand, the learned and enthusiastic President of the 
Societe des Amis des Monuments, a bit of pointed stick, 
and kneeling on a newspaper spread on the miry ground, 




The Paris Metropolitain under Construction 

is busy with the utmost skill and tenderness of touch in 
freeing from their disfiguring incrustation of Seine mud 
a series of Roman inscriptions traced in fine lapidary 
characters. By his side M. Ch. Sellier, our devoted 
collaborator at the Carnavalet, and inspector of Parisian 
excavations, is cleaning with loving care a great bas-relief 
on which three figures draped in peplums can already be 
made out. . . . 



UNDERNEATH THE SEINE 149 

All about us, resting on broken columns and mutilated 
capitals, are displayed iron clamps almost eaten away by 
rust, shards of iridescent glass that glitter like peacocks' 
feathers, a drinking goblet, bits of pottery ware. We 
scribble our hurried memoranda in a cutting, the excavated 
walls of which are composed of the debris of twenty cen- 
turies. It is a heterogeneous mixture of different soils — 
brown, yellow, red — of grey stones and pulverised brick, 
of accumulated rubbish blocking the vaults of cellars and 
openings into subterranean chambers. Buried in this 
strange compost were found these fine carved stones that 
prove how sumptuous must have been the Lutetia of the 
Antonines during the Roman occupation. 

Everywhere navvies are hard at work, — wide breeches 
of faded velveteen, pink or blue shirts with sleeves 
rolled up over brawny arms, tanned by sun and rain, the 
head covered with a weather-stained drooping felt. . . . 
Right and left are anvils, portable forges, ladders left 
standing in the excavations. In the background the high 
black arms of a gigantic crane move to and fro. The 
whistling of escaping steam half drowns the distracting din 
produced right under the walls of the Prefecture of Police 
by the riveters hammering might and main at the iron 
girders destined to support the future railway station of 
the Me'tro. for the Cite. 

The next thing is to visit the works being carried on 
under the bed of the Seine. M. Faillie, Chief Engineer in 
Charge, has for months had his master-hand on these vast 
operations ; to-day he is good enough personally to conduct 
us on this expedition, — which is not without its difficulties 
for the neophyte. " You are not afraid? . . . your heart 



150 WALKS IN PARIS 

isn't given to playing you tricks ? . . . good ! then away 
we go ! " — -A pleasant companion and a good fellow, M. 
Marcel Vernet, forsaking the artistic photographs he was 
in the act of taking of the bas-reliefs discovered yesterday, 
has joined our party. We soon reach the staging where 
the heads of the huge piles, crowned with a bell-hat and 
swathed in canvas petticoat and brown breeches, look like 
so many sailors ; we clamber up ladders and arrive at the 
level of the Quai in front of those long red pipes that look 
so decorative at a distance, but are by no means so at- 
tractive when it comes to getting into one and climbing 
down to the depths below ! A compressed-air bell, like 
a gigantic cork of sheet-iron, six feet in diameter, sur- 
mounts each of them ; this is the " compression chamber." 
In the middle is a tiny opening, — the " man-hole," so 
called because a man can just with difficulty squeeze 
through it. 

At last we are all properly packed in the little circular 
cage, and the iron door is firmly screwed up. . . . " Breathe 
slowly, and when the buzzing in your ears gets too bad, 
pinch the end of your nose and swallow your saliva," — those 
are the orders. M. Faillie, manometer in hand, gives the 
signal, and the compressed air begins to whistle into our 
prison. 

A few seconds and the sweat is rolling down our 
cheeks ; there is a stifling sensation, the temples throb 
violently, and a whole regiment of drummers seems to be 
practising their noisiest music in each ear. This pleasing 
operation is called "going through the air-lock." They 
shout out excellent hints for our benefit, of which we 
cannot hear one word ; pantomime is the only resource, 
and we pinch our noses with a will, but our throats being 



UNDERNEATH THE SEINE 



i ;r 



entirely blocked by a spasmodic contraction, it is a 
monstrously difficult thing to swallow one's saliva. . . 
At last M. Faillie has the cover of the descending man- 
hole lifted, and a blast of cold, damp air enters by the 
aperture. 

How dark it is ! and what a long way down ! and 
what a very precarious hold the small iron clamps fixed 
all down the tube afford ! . . . But there, it's too late 




Surface Works of the Metro poll tain ; Ventilation Tubes, etc. 

to draw back now, or think of one's nerves. . . . Keep a 
good heart, that's the only way. Both my companions 
disappear down the tube ; now it's my turn, and down I 
go, with a workman ahead of me to put my stumbling 
feet straight on the footholds. It is hot, horribly hot, 
though every now and then great hurricanes of cold wind 
come from below, lashing us with a chilling blast. But, 
what an endless lot of steps ! . . . there are, as a matter 



152 WALKS IN PARIS 

of fact, it appears, only fifty-two, and fifteen yards is the 
total descent. ... I would have wagered double. This 
scrambling down in the dark seems endless ; you can see 
nothing, and only hear vague, mysterious rumblings. 
Finally we reach the working chamber, right under the 
flooring of the iron caisson within which the trains will 
move one day, and the weirdness, the strangeness, the 
beauty of the novel sight repays us for all our fatigue. 

We are beneath the Seine, our feet rest on the actual 
bed of the ancient river. ... A startling thought ! A 
gallery, very long and very low, stretches away in the 
distance, lit by scores of electric globes. The workmen's 
heads all but touch the iron ceiling, from which hang 
their belongings, — bundles of clothes, drinking-cans and 
tool-bags. The bottom of the river is of sand and pebbles 
strewn with bits of broken timber and blocks of stone ; 
you stumble over heaps of gravel and wade through 
standing pools of water. 

A gang of fifty navvies, naked to the waist and 
booted to mid-thigh, is working away placidly amid the 
never-ceasing roar of the powerful compressed-air motors 
which on either hand drive back the river water under the 
cutting-edges that line the working-chamber and are 
cleaving day by day deeper and deeper into the bed of 
the Seine. 

Some of the fellows are breaking up stones with sledge- 
hammers, and piling them in loads which, directly they 
are full, disappear through the steel roof ; others are tearing 
out trunks of trees and masses of old iron, or hacking up 
strangely contorted fragments of black wood, that look 
like the carcases of weird river monsters, — we are right 
under the moorings of a charcoal boat ; man)- more, 



vTrr.,^, r 



■'. ' T" 




Tour de VHorloge and Round Towers of Conciergeru 



154 WALKS IN PARIS 

standing up to their knees in water, are digging out the 
sand in great spadefuls, excavating the bed of the stream. 
Lying on a heap of gravel, I watch and wonder at the pro- 
digious sight. 

But it is time to return ; to stay longer would make 
the ascent still more difficult for arms and lungs untrained 
to this most fatiguing exercise. . . . So here I am reclimb- 
ing — with what arduous effort ! — the interminable steps of 
the dark, stifling tube. Arrived at the bell, I am hauled 
in, and smiling, good-humoured workmen face me with 
their leather sou'-westers. ... I am choking, though 
piercing whistles prove that the air is escaping outwards. 
However, it is needful, under penalty of grave risks, to 
proceed slowly and judiciously. At length the iron door 
is opened, and I rejoin my companions, who had come up 
before me. We are outside, safe and sound, but in what a 
state of dilapidation. . . . How good it is to breathe the 
natural air of heaven, and how agreeable to contemplate 
once more the architecture of the Palais de Justice^ the 
Tour de £ Horloge and the old Round Towers of the Con- 
ciergerie ! 

It is a sight never to be forgotten. All the same I 
should not care to recommend a similar excursion to my 
fair readers. For our elegant Parisiennes a walk in the 
streets of Paris is decidedly a better amusement than one 
underneath the Seine. 

(28th June, 1906) 






THE RIGHT BANK 
THE PLACE DE LA BASTILLE 

AND THE BOULEVARD BEAUMARCHAIS 

ON 14th July, 1789, about half past five in the after- 
noon, the news spread through Paris that the 
Bastille had fallen. Impossible to form any idea of the 
stupefaction caused by the incredible tidings. It was the 
end of a world. Hesitating to accept such a miracle as 
conceivable, Paris was fain to see, to look with all its eyes 
at this monstrous, this unheard of spectacle, — the Bastille 
taken prisoner ! From every side, from alleys and streets 
and boulevards, from the inner suburbs and the outer, 
crowds converged on the purlieus of the gloomy fortress. 
. . . But no one ventured to pass the Gate. On the Quai 
Pel/etier y Grammont, the actor, perched on a wayside post, 
exhorted the passers-by to be careful : " There are quarries 
underneath Paris ; beware of powder mines ! " But pre- 
sently curiosity carried the day, and next morning all was 
eagerness to visit the captured stronghold. The victors 
did the honours ; since yesterday their number had 
doubled ; it was increased tenfold, when the question was 
raised of voting them a National recompense ! 

In an open carriage was paraded a certain Whyte, — 
an old mad Englishman, — who could make nothing of his 

155 



156 WALKS IN PARIS 

triumphal progress, and begged them to take him back 
to his dungeon. Latude, who had been released five years 
before, whom circumstances had again made the hero 
of the hour, was besieged with invitations, hostesses fought 
for the honour of receiving him. Accompanied by Mme. 
Legros, — his ' k second mother," — he made endless speeches, 
recounted his wrongs, unrolled his rope-ladders, showed 
his tools, told of the numberless letters he wrote on the 
lining of his waistcoats with ink made by mixing lamp- 
black with his portion of prison wine ! . . . Mirabeau, an 
old familiar of the Bastille, pushed his way under its 
vaulted entrance, pretty Mme. Lejay on his arm, from 
the bookshop in the Rue de VEchelle. Manuel came to 
recover the manuscript of some villainous verses which 
he had hidden during his confinement in the dusty 
stuffing of an old armchair. . . . All Paris was at fever- 
heat. At night every window was lit up with lanterns. 
The Duchess of Sutherland writes to Lady Stafford : 
"" Men armed with pistols, swords or pikes scour the 
streets in every direction . . . old rusty lances are sharpen- 
ing on the stone posts at every corner ". — Patrols of the 
National Guard went in squads to go over the dreadful 
fortress. Every hole and corner was eagerly inspected, 
visitors showed each other the spot where Louis XI. had 
shut up several nobles in iron cages, and touched the 
hooks, still in situ, which had supported the scaffold, five 
feet high, erected in the Main Court of the Prison. Here- 
on had been executed on 30th July, 1602, Charles de 
Gontaut-Biron, Marshal of France. "The headsman 
•struck him so terrible a sword-blow that his head flew to 
the midst of the said Courtyard." They recalled the memory 
of by-gone prisoners, — Louis de Rohan, Fouquet, La 



THE PLACE DE LA BASTILLE 157 

Voisin. the Man of the Iron Mask, 1 Voltaire. The Bastille 




Portrait ot Latude 

1,4 The Man in the Iron Mask," — variously supposed by popular 
fancy and writers of romance to have been a son of Cromwell, the Due 
de Beaufort, who disappeared during an action at Candia and was never 
heard of again, or a twin brother of Louis XIV., who it was desirable for 
State reasons should vanish from the scene. Apparently he was none of 
these, but a person of much humbler birth, the depositor of some mon- 
strous secret ; but the whole story is wrapped up in impenetrable mystery. 
Dumas follows the third supposition (twin brother of Louis XIV.) in his- 



i 5 8 



WALKS IN PARIS 



was never empty till the day when Soules — the new 
Governor appointed by the Municipality — thought right 

to suspend these 
visits under the 
remarkable pre- 
text that " such 
damage had al- 
ready been done 
to the fortress 
by visitors that 
it would cost 
over 200,000 
livres ... to put 
it in repair ". 

Pare in his 
Souvenirs des- 
cribes the furi- 
ous anger which 
this preposter- 
ous motive of " repairing the Bastille " roused in the 
breast of Danton, Sergeant in the National Guard, who 
with his Section had been confronted by this strange 
notice. Danton grips the unhappy Soules by the collar 
and hauls him off to the Hotel de Ville. The ridicu- 
lous order is withdrawn, and visitors flock there as 
before till the time when four National engineers, de La 
Poeze, de Montizon, Poyet and de Savault are entrusted 
with the task of demolishing the Bastille. 1 Then it was 

Vicomte de Bragelonne. See The Vicomte de Bragelonne ; Part II. Man 
in the Iron Mask, in Methuen's Complete Dumas, translated by Alfred 
Allinson. [Transl.] 

1 Souvenirs de Danton, — autograph MS. of Pare (Collection of Georges 
Cain). 




Execution of Gontaut Biron (from a contemporary 
print) 



THE PLACE DE LA BASTILLE 159 

the patriot Palloy appears on the scene, who puts the 
famous State Prison under systematic contribution ; from 
the stones he carves " models of the Fortress, dedicated 
to the Departments and the Assemblies," or commemor- 
ative tablets well fitted to " stimulate the Nation's Spirit " ; 
he utilises the lead and chains to make bracelets, medals, 
rings. With marbles of different colours he conceives the 
happy and delicate thought of constructing a set of 
dominos which he offers to the young Dauphin " to inspire 
in him a horror of tyranny V 

All the world goes in merry bands to watch the demoli- 
tion of the Bastille; it is the fashionable thing to do. It 
is considered modish " to take one's turn at the pick," and 
the most elegant ladies do so. All along the moats, under 
the old walls of the fortress, drinking-booths are opened ; 
the wine flows freely, the fiddles scrape, ropes of coloured 
lamps light up the scene, and the ruins of the dreaded prison 

• J The cover (repaired) of this curious toy is shown in one of the glass- 
cases in the Musee Carnavalet, — Salle de la Bastille. On a piece of grey 
marble, about 3 J inches in height and nearly 8 broad, are inscribed the 
four verses : — 

" De ces cachots affreux, la terreur des Francais, 
Vous voyez les debris transformes en hochets. 
Puissent-ils en servant aux jeux de votre enfance 
Du peuple vous prouver l'amour et la puissance." 
" Of these horrid dungeons, the terror of the French, you see the re- 
mains transformed into playthings. May they, serving for the diversion 
of your childhood, prove to you the affection and power of the people." 
Underneath is written this note in manuscript: " 1st January, 1790, the 
Grenadiers of the National Guard of Paris came, with musicians marching 
at their head, to bring Monseigneur the Dauphin a set of dominos made 
out of stones and marble taken from the demolition of this State Prison. 
The Queen ordered Mme. Campan to keep for her this curious historical 
monument of popular excitement. At the pillage on 10th August it was 
smashed, and only the broken lid was found. Mme. Campan, in obedience 
to the order she had been given, ever afterwards kept this in her posses- 
sion." 



i6o 



WALKS IN PARIS 



are plastered with a staring notice of " Dancing here ! " 
The site is levelled and used for civic fetes. On I ith July, 
1 79 1, the body of Voltaire lies there in view before being 
carried to the Pantheon; in 1793 Herault de Sechelles 
presides in the same place at the Festival of Fraternity. 




" lei Von danse " 

. . . Under the Consulate the ground is left vacant and 
unoccupied, but Napoleon I., in 18 10, instructs Alavoine 
to erect there the model of a huge fountain of a strange 
and monumental type ; an elephant, seventy-four feet 
high rises in the south-east corner of the Place, — near the 



THE PLACE DE LA BASTILLE 161 

canal, a little to the left of the present station of the Mttro. 
It was surmounted by a tower painted green and discharged 
a jet of water through its trunk. 

Built provisionally of clay and rough plaster, the ele- 
phant very soon became, under the action of rain and wind 
and dust, a deplorable ruin, cracked, crumbling and weather- 
stained, surrounded by a palisade of rotten planks. Rank 
grass grew between its legs, and the general level of the 
Square having been raised, it looked as if the ground were 
giving way under the monster's weight. " There was about 
it," wrote Victor Hugo, " something of the foulness of 
garbage, that will be swept into the kennel, and something 
of the majesty of kings, that will come to the axe." l The 
Paris street-boys used to gaze at it with awe, while the 
rats had made it their chosen abode to such a degree that 
when, about 1845, it was finally demolished, regular 

1 " It was an elephant forty feet high, constructed of timber and 
masonry, bearing on its back its tower or howdah, which was like a house, 
originally painted green by some dauber, now coloured black by the storms 
of heaven, the rain and the weather. In this lonely and open part of the 
Place, the monster's huge head, its trunk and tusks, the tower it carried, its 
enormous back and four feet like columns, formed at night a shape that was 
very startling and terrible as it loomed out against the starry sky. What 
it meant exactly, who could say ? It was a species of symbol of the power 
of the masses, — sombre, enigmatic and enormous. It was a grim and 
threatening spectre, still standing there before men's eyes, beside the 
vanished phantom of the Bastille. 

" Few strangers ever visited the monument, no passer-by ever turned 
to look at it. Our ' aediles,' as the fashionable phrase goes, had forgotten 
it ever since 1815. There it was in its corner, a melancholy, decrepit 
object, crumbling to decay. ... It was foul, the butt of universal scorn, 
repulsive and yet somehow sublime, an eyesore to the cit, a pathetic spec- 
tacle to the thinkers. . . . When twilight fell, the old elephant was trans- 
figured ; it took on a look of dreadful calm in the awe-inspiring serenity of 
the shades of night." — Victor Hugo, Les Miserables (where the little 
Gavroche takes advantage of the works of the great Napoleon, and makes 
his home in the inside of the Elephant), p. 523. 

11 



1 62 WALKS IN PARIS 

battues had to be organised with men and dogs, to rid 
the terrified neighbourhood of the vermin. 

What is left to-day of the Bastille and its eight Towers ? 
Nothing, or next to nothing. Six years ago, when the 
first, the original line of the Metropolitan was built, the 
excavations brought to light, right in the middle of the Rue 
Saint-Anloine,be(ore the door of No. I , and extending some 
way under the footpath, the foundations of the Tour de la 
Liberte. The Municipal Council decreed that these his- 
toric remains should be preserved and removed to the 
Quai des Celestins, bordering the river, where the public 
can inspect them at this present moment. 

The substructions of the other Towers are to be found 
in cellars of houses in the Rue Saint- Antoine and the 
Boulevard Henri IV., or are marked on the surface of 
the Place itself by lines of black paving-stones. Two 
drawbridges guarded the fortress ; the approach was by a 
winding road bounded on the right by barracks, on the 
left by shops; it began in the Rue Saint- Antoine where 
No. 5 now stands, as an inscription on the spot indicates. 1 
The first (the advanced drawbridge), the chains of which 
the people broke down with hatchets, opened at the corner 
of the Boulevard Henri I V., on the ground now occupied by 
the omnibus bureau ; the second (the drawbridge of the 
Entrance Gate) was situated in the Place de la Bastille, in 
the line of the Boulevard Bourdon, a few yards higher up 
than the present Cafe Henri IV. ... A few meagre 
lines traced between the flag-stones, entangled among the 

1 " These shops were situated in such a way as to serve as a covered 
way for the assailants ; it was de Launay's interest as governor to destroy 
them, to free the approaches. He did nothing of the sort because he 
drew a large income from the rents."— A. Carro, Vie politique ct privce 
de Santerre, p. 38. 



THE PLACE DE LA BASTILLE 



[6 



tramway rails, a few stones removed from their original 
site, — that is all that remains of the celebrated fortress. 
. . . Latude himself could not identify the localities! 




3 
aq 



The. Canal flows over the site of the moats, and the 
embanking wall alongside the Boulevard Bourdon. ;<\s the 
identical wall built by Henri II., — it was only about 1827 
that it was slightly modified by the addition of a parapet. 



1 64 WALKS IN PARIS 

The two houses forming the entrance to the Rue de 
Lesdiguieres, as also the building No. I of the Rue des 
Tournelles, are intact or nearly so, while No. 7 of the Rue 
Saint-Antoine shows us a perfect example of the low- 
browed dwellings that formed the majority of bourgeois 
habitations about the year 1789. On the site of Nos. 8 
and 10 of the Rue de Lesdiguieres (the Rue de Les- 
diguieres where Balzac once lived x ) could still be seen, 
only a few years ago, one of the enclosing walls of the 
Bastille. A row of narrow houses have been built against 
it, and at No. 10, it is the actual wall of the old fortalice 
of Paris that forms the back of the Concierge's lodge — oh ! 
the strange mutability of things ! 

On 20th July, 1840, was inaugurated the Column 
which now rises in the middle of the square, surmounted 
by the Genius of Liberty setting her flying foot above the 
city. It is 170 feet high — which makes it a favourite 
resort of suicides — and covers the corpses of the com- 
batants who fell during the three days of the Revolution of 
1830. The bodies lay widely scattered, in front of the 
Colonnade of the Louvre, in the Champ-de-Mars, some 
even at Montmartre. All were collected and brought to 
the Place de la Bastille, — not without sundry intruders find- 
ing their way there too. ... In an admirable preface, 
teeming with interesting reminiscences, 2 Victorien Sardou, 
speaking of the Colonnade of the Louvre, tells us how 
" under the Restoration there had been buried, just where 
Velasquez' equestrian statue stands, a number of Egyptian 
mummies that had become decomposed by too long a 

1 Balzac (Faciuo Cane). 

2 Coins de Paris, by Georges Cain. — Preface by V. Sardou (Flam- 
marion, 26 Rue Racine, Paris). 




Place tie la Bastille— From Plan of the Qumrim 

Jaillot, 1774 



[64 



WALKS IN PARIS 



The two houses forming the entrance to the Rue de 
Lesdiguieres, as also the building No. 1 of the Rue des 
Tournelles, are intact or nearly so, while No. 7 of the Rue 
'lows us a perfect example of the low- 
browed dwellings that formed the majority of bourgeois 
habitations about the year 1789. On the site of Nos. 8 



srcl 10 uL Hie Rmc } d'e Ltsdig nitres (the Rue/ $e [Le$- 
','g uteres Xvhete-B 

B 

it 
ol 




once lived 1 ) could Mill £>e seen, 
e of the enclosiiSg "walls of the 
"en bui 




'ated the 

rioui 
setting- iter-^ing!foot ab4 
igh — which makes it a fa 1 
rdsort^f suicides — and covers the corpses of the 
bc.tantsAvho fell during theVthreedays of the Revolu 
1 030. The bodies lay/^vickly scattered, in front 
Colonnade of the Lou vr^ijy^. Ch\mp-de- Mars, 
even at Montmartre.f X\i Av^jCtdlWtd and brou< 
the Place de la Bas/tae,--'^ »t wfcftout sundry intrudei 
in^ their way there too. V^,'^In a/ admirable preface, 
te aming with i nt erestingteqiLui^cerfces , 2 Victorie n Sardou, .. 




speaking of the Colonnade of the Louvre, tells us how 

" under the Restoration there had been buried, just where 

isquez' equestrian statue stands, a number of Egyptian 

mummies that had become decomposed by too long a 

I Balzac (Facitio Ca 

II Coins de Paris, by Georges Cain.— Preface by V. Sardou (Flam- 
marion, 26 Rue Racine, Paris). 




Place de la Bastille — From Plan of the Quartier Saint- Antoine, by 

Jaillot, 1774 



1 66 



WALKS IN PARIS 



sojourn in the ground-floor rooms of the Louvre. In 
1830, at the same spot, the bodies of the assailants killed 





ssstf 




. " J ■ 




■«t*£sjjj 




jjBu-— ft 


1 


Ite® 


I ;. '• '"': 


;lf1 




,4 




11 


€ 


r^i&¥ 



-rKt! 



cd 



— 
O 









in the attack on the Louvre were hurriedly thrown into a 
common grave. Ten years later, when it was desired to 
give these heroes a more noble sepulture, patriots and 
mummies were dug up pell-mell. And so the contem- 



THE PLACE DE LA BASTILLE [6; 

poraries of the Pharaohs are piously interred under the 
Bastille Column, as brave fighters of the July Revolution ! " 
Better than most indeed Victorien Sardou is qualified 
to speak of the Place de la Bastille, which he knew so well 
in the heyday of his youth. About 1838, when quite a 
lad, he lived within a few yards of it, with his parents, in 
the Rue Saint- Antoine, quite close to the Rue Beautreillis, 
where he saw the light at No. 16. 1 Endless were the 
games of hoop, football and prisoner's base played with 
his young companions round the Elephant and by the 
banks of the Canal ; in fact it was on occasion of one of 
these boyish frolics that the remarkable boy, already an 
explorer and full of curiosity, actually penetrated Beau- 
marchais' privacy ! ... or to speak with more rigorous 
precision, got into what was left of the famous gardens 
that had so stirred the imagination of the Parisians that 
no one at that date (about 1787) was admitted without 
a card bearing the signature of the author of Figaro, a 
privilege only very sparingly accorded. Now one day 
when little Sardou, in company with another boy of his 
own age, was trundling his hoop in the neighbourhood of 
the Canal Saint-Martin, the little fellow suddenly stopped 
dead in delighted amazement! A line of old walls and 
worm-eaten palings bounded a piece of vacant ground, and 

'The Master makes this quite plain in the following note : "Dear 
friend — I think the house in the Rue Beatitrciilis bears the number 16. 
It may perhaps have been altered. It was then occupied by a painter, 
the Sieur Bauvais. But in any case it is easy to identify. It is the only 
house in the street, or even in the quarter, as far as I know, to which ac- 
cess is obtained by a long vaulted passage pierced half way by a mini iture 
courtyard open to the sky and provided with old-fashioned wooden balus- 
trades. It was a dcfcndancc of the Hotel de Charny. . . . 

" Vict. Sardou." 



1 68 WALKS IN PARIS 

the palings were adorned with a whole series of gaudy 
pictures by Epinal, — soldiers, actors and actresses, figures 
of Genevieve de Brabant, the Wandering Jew, the Four 
Sons of Aymon. What a ravishing discovery ! But lo ! 
while examining these wonders, the boy peeps between 
two ill-fitting planks, and catches sight of a neglected 
garden ! What garden can it be ? . . . Suppose we went 
in ? ... So there they are, Sardou and his little comrade, 
prising away a plank with their hoop sticks, and squeezing 
through, in a delicious state of trepidation, into this 
mysterious domain of trailing bindweed and rank vegeta- 
tion and flowers of vivid, exotic hues. The whole place 
is overrun, grown into a virgin forest in miniature, where 
birds sing and butterflies flit to and fro and rabbits 
scamper at their own sweet will. Sardou can still call to 
mind an old pavilion in ruins, as well as the Gate of 
Entrance, and another abandoned garden bordering on 
the Rue du Pas-de-la- Mule. These were the sole vestiges 
of the once magnificent dwelling of Beaumarchais, sur- 
mounted in his day with a pen by way of weathercock 
and symbol! — There can hardly be a more exquisite 
treat than to listen to this same honey-tongued Sardou as 
he recounts, in words that at once charm the ear and stir 
the imagination, his fascinating stories, told with such 
consummate skill, of that Paris of an earlier day which 
he regrets so keenly and knows so well. 



THE PLACE DES VOSGES 

(PLACE ROYALE) 

WITHIN a few hundred yards of the Place de la 
Bastille, scored by tramway lines, noisy with the 
hum of motors, traversed in all directions by cabs and 
buses and drays, crowded with busy pedestrians diving 
into the Metro. Station or hurrying to the ticket 
office of the Gave de Vincennes, at the upper end of the 
short Rue dit Pas-de-la- Mule, lies the quiet old Place des 
Vosges. Once the Place Roy ale, the pride and joy of Paris, 
it is to-day no more than a silent, dreary-looking garden 
surrounded by old houses of stone and brick, the red of 
which time has subdued to a rather dismal hue. The pro- 
vincial calm of the ancient Square contrasts strangely with 
the animation of the surrounding streets and boulevards. 
If the deafening rattle of the Bastille- Wagram omnibus 
did not recall us to present-day realities, we might, with- 
out any great effort, believe ourselves transported to the 
Paris of three hundred years ago ; we breathe the full 
flavour of the seventeenth century. The ancient mansions 
crowned with extinguisher roofs, the whole spot impreg- 
nated with an odour of neglect and decay, remind one of 
the romantic Beguinages of Bruges, of the Florentine 
piazzas, the delightful buildings of a more picturesque 

age. 

169 



lyo WALKS IN PARIS 

How many of our Parisiennes lift their charming eyes 
in ecstasy before the sights of foreign lands, who are guilty 
of the unpardonable sin of knowing nothing whatever 
about the " Place Royale" which Corneille celebrated in 
1635,- where the fair votaries of the Pays du Tendre 
flaunted and flirted under the reign of the Precieuses, where 
Ninon de L'Enclos and Marion Delorme gave their lovers 
assignation, — the Place Royale where so many fine fops, 
breakers of heads and slitters of weazands and breakers of 
the laws against duelling, exchanged such slashing blows 
beneath the pensive eye of the " fair fashionables," who, 
the better to see them cut one another's throats, would 
daintly lift a corner of the jalousies with the tip of their 
rosy fingers, — the Place Royale, where dwelt the Cardinal 
de Richelieu, Chabannes, the Marquis de Flers, Rohan- 
Chabot, the Marechal de Chaulnes, the Marquis de Bre- 
teuil, the Marquis de Dangeau, Canillac, Mile, du Chatelet, 
the Prince de Talmont, and many others famous in history; 
where Mme. de Sevigne was born, where the great tragic 
actress Rachel l lived, where from one window to another, 
Victor Hugo and Theophile Gautier discussed art and 
poetry ! Now its only frequenters are the children from 
the neighbouring boarding schools, playing at ball or 
" saddle-my-nag" round a poor statue of Louis XIII. com- 
fortably flanked by the kiosque of the good lady who lets 
out chairs and a Punch and Judy show ! 

To recall the successive avatars oi the Place des Vosges 

1 Rachel died 3rd January, 1858, at Le Canet, near Cannes, at the 
Villa Sardou. Her obsequies were held 8th January in Paris : " The 
cortege will assemble at her house, 9 Place Royale in the Marais. The 
family beg the numerous friends and acquaintances of Mile. Rachel to 
consider the present notification as an invitation to the funeral." — Gazette 
des Tribwiaux, 7th January, 1858. 






THE PLACE DES VOSGES 



171 



is to go through the history of France. On this spot 
Charles V. erected the Hotel des Tounielles, a sort of 
suburban country-house surrounded by gardens and a little 
bosky wood, " where the Kings used to walk for refresh- 
ment by reason of the beauty and amenity of the place, " 
— the Rue du Parc-Royal is a relic of these vanished days 
At a later date, during the occupation of Paris by the 
English, a period when "death was dealing his blows so 




Place Royale — Place des Vosges (from an old print) 

hard and fast that great trenches had to be dug in the 
cemeteries into which the corpses were pitched thirty and 
forty at a time, piled in layers like streaky bacon and 
barely dusted over with earth atop," the Duke of Bedford, 
Regent of France, takes up his abode at the Toumelles y 
which he enlivens with " peacocks and rare birds confined 
in a large aviary of brass wire illuminated by nine mirrors ". 
Louis XI. inhabited it, Francois I. convoked thither 
the "officers, citizens and commonalty of Paris," to make 



172 WALKS IN PARIS 

arrangements for the farming out of the different taxes of 
the City — it was the first of municipal loans. Henri II. 
finding the Palace, " mean, unhealthy and disgusting," 
only paid hurried visits there on the occurrence of tourneys 
and jousts, the "lists" of the Tournelles — on the site of 
the present Place des Vosges — being excellently adapted 
for these festivals of the spear and sword ; for exceptionally 
important occasions larger 'lists" were established in the 
Rue Saint- Antoine. There it was that — between what is 
nowadays the Rue de Sevigne and the Rue de Birague — 
on 1st July, 1559, Henri II., fighting under the colours of 
Diane de Poitiers and breaking a lance with the Sire de 
Montgomery, Captain of his Scottish Guard, was mortally 
wounded. Montgomery's lance, lifting the visor of the 
King's helmet, penetrated his eye. After lying ten days 
on a bed of pain, Henri died at the Tournelles, to which 
he had been carried after the accident. Since that day 
no King of France dared occupy the fatal Palace, and 
Catherine de Medicis, widow of Henri II., obtained the 
leave of her son Charles IX. to demolish the ill-omened 
building. 

The old walls are pulled down, the scutcheon of France 
sculptured by Jean de Boulogne is torn from above the 
Gate, the Rue des Tournelles is constructed over the site 
of the facade, — while, on the site of the old garden, with 
its maze of flowery walks, is opened a Horse Market. 

This Place du M arche-aux-Chevaux was the scene of 
the celebrated and tragic duel of the " Minions," recorded 
by L'Estoile : On Sunday, 27th April, 1578, at five in the 
morning, Quelus, " chiefest of the chief minions of the 
King," Maugiron and Livarot met in combat on this spot 



THE PLACE DES VOSGES 173 

Balzac d'Entragues, Riberac and Schomberg, " who held 
for the House of Guise ". They fought so furiously that 
the handsome Maugiron and the young Schomberg were 







left dead on the ground ; Riberac expired next day, while 
Livarot was seven weeks sick ; d'Entragues got off safe and 
sound ; lastly Quelus, " the aggressor and first cause of 
the rencounter," lay thirty days languishing of the nineteen 



174 WALKS IN PARIS 

wounds he had received, and died at the Hotel de Boissy 
in the Rue Saint- Antoine. Every day the King went 
and sat at his bedside ; " he had promised 100,000 livres 
to the surgeons, if he should recover his health, and 
100,000 crowns to the handsome favourite himself, to 
give him a good courage to get well". Henri III.'s grief 
was extreme ; as for the good folk of Paris, they only 
laughed and sang " vaudevilles " on the death of these 
" bloodsuckers " : — 

Au grand Diable soit telle engeance, 
C'est de la graine de Florence 
Qui ruinera notre France ! . . . 
. . . L'Entraguet et ses compagnons 
Ont bien etrille les mignons : 
Chacun dit que c'est grand dommage 
Qu'il n'en est pas mort davantage ! ! 

Henri IV., wishing to render the district which had 
suffered from these demolitions more healthy and hand- 
some, orders Claude Chatillon to draw out the plans 
of the future Place Royale, which he proposes to make 
the fashionable centre of Paris, to be approached by a 
number of broad streets bearing the names of the French 
Provinces. Hence the Rues de Saintonge, de Beam, de 
Bretagne, etc., streets still in existence. It was not a 
mere project of city improvement, it was a scheme for 
centralisation and French unity. So the soil is excavated, 
foundations are laid and scaffolds run up ; fine mansions 
rise and elegant arcades are formed. Every day the 
King comes in person to urge on and superintend the 
works in progress. But in 1610 Henri IV. falls under 

1 " To the Foul Fiend with such a brood ; it comes of the Florence 
stock that will be the ruin of our land of France ! . . . Entraguet and 
his comrades have given the Mignons a famous currycombing: every 
one says 'tis a mighty pity no more of them are dead ! " 



THE PLACE DES VOSGES 175 

Ravaillac's knife, and it is only in the earlier years of the 
reign of Louis XIII. that the Place Royale is inaugurated. 

Such as it was then it remains to this day. But if 
the stage continues the same, the actors are utterly and 
entirely changed. Once the Place Royale was the cynosure 
of all eyes, the nucleus of Parisian gaiety. Coaches and 
carrying-chairs set down all the fashionable beauties there ; 
there the most elegant cavaliers pranced their steeds under 
the fascinated eyes of their " divinities " ; there the Pre- 
cieuses, lisping and bepainted, " talked Vaugelas " ; there 
the Fops struck their swaggering attitudes and displayed 
their insolent stare and curled moustaches and sweeping 
plumes. Court and Town looked and longed in front 
of the sumptuous shops, — goldsmiths and silversmiths and 
armourers, dealers in brocades and laces and Venice 
cloths, booksellers who sold Mile, de Scudery's latest 
romance and maps of the Pays du Teudre. 

. . . Now all speaks of desertion, loneliness and 
neglect. Three sides of the vast quadrangle are empty, 
literally empty ; the fourth shelters a few humble traders ; 
shy second-hand dealers vend old candlesticks spotted 
with verdigris, broken-down umbrellas, dilapidated bi- 
cycles, decrepit flutes ; a couple of chairs support three 
or four planks piled with dusty volumes, — UEscroc du 
grand vionde, an old Bible, the Revue de I y Ecole de phar- 
macies the Voyages de jcune A nacharsis and the Cuisiniere 
bourgeoise. A grocer's shop-front, decorated for the com- 
ing Christmastide strikes the only note of gaiety in the 
depressing dinginess of these long, dreaiy, unfrequented 
arcades. A fruiterer displays his red cabbages and 
carrots and bundles of salsify along the walls of the vaulted 
passage ending the Rue de Beam, — the same passage down 



176 



WALKS IX PARIS 



which ground the wheels of Marion Delorme's coach, and 
which is surmounted by a symbolic sun, sculptured in 










^ 



o 
bo 



> 



stone, that looks as if it were ashamed to look upon such 
fallen fortunes ! 

To-day, in this dreary December weather, the garden 
is deserted, but in summer the stunted trees that surround 



THE PLACE DES VOSGES 177 

it shelter a tribe of nursemaids and children, 1 with their 
escort of linesmen, housewives knitting in the sun, and old 
fellows of the Marat's living on their means, who come 
here to read the newspaper and smoke their pipe. At the 
identical spot where they sit at their ease, on Wednesday, 
1 2th May, 1627, — the very day following the promulgation 
of Cardinal Richelieu's edict against duelling, — Francois 
de Montmorency, Comte de Bouteville (the young man 
whom the Pere Seguenot admired greatly, " because at 
the age of only twenty-four, after righting nineteen duels, 
he had so far killed outright only two of his adversaries "), 
alighted from his coach at three o'clock in the afternoon. 
Des Chapelles and the Comte de La Berthe acted as his 
seconds, while the Comte de Beuvron, his opponent, was 
accompanied by Buquet and Bussy d'Amboise. They 
saluted, drew off their doublets and fell on guard, sword 
in one hand, dagger in the other. A few minutes more 
and La Berthe was grievously wounded and Bussy was 
dying, his throat cut open by Des Chapelles' sword. 
Bouteville and Beuvron got off scot-free, but both of 
them, six weeks afterwards, died in the Place de Greve. 

1 " . . . For years the Place Royale had the reputation of attract- 
ing great numbers of children who found health and strength there. A 
medical work, La Topographic medicate de Pans, on examen des causes 
qui peuvent avoir une influence marquee sur la saute des habitants de 
cette ville (" Medical Topography of Paris, — an Inquiry into Causes capable 
of exerting a pronounced Influence on the Health of the Inhabitants of 
that City"), by Lachaize, Doctor of Medicine of Paris (1822, p. 167), 
writes thus, when speaking of the Marais quarter: "The inhabitants of 
this district have the boulevards for walking, and the children, who 
swarm there in amazing numbers, are carried to the Place Royale, where 
they enjoy the open air and are exposed to the direct rays of the sun. 
Accordingly they enjoy better health than those reared in most other 
quarters of the inner town." — (L. Lambeau, La Place Royale, p. 344, 1906 
— Darragon, 30 Rue Duperre, Paris). 
12 



178 WALKS IN PARIS 

" With a single blow of inconceivable swiftness, the execu- 
tioner slashed off Bouteville's head ; then his sword, still 
red with his friend's blood, descended on Des Chapelles' 
neck." 

The Place Royale still continued in vogue under Louis 
XIV. ; but afterwards fashion began to desert it, and her 
votaries to migrate in the direction of the Tuileries and 
the Palais- Royal. Finally the cannon of the Bastille sent 
the last faithful few who still loved the old Square flying. 
The shops were closed, the stately mansions emptied and 
the sans-culottes stormed the magnificent railings of 
wrought-iron dating from Louis XIV. (they can still be 
admired, at least in part, as they guard the buildings of 
the Bibliotheque Nationale facing the Rue Vivienne), and a 
manufactory of arms was established in the Place de 
Flndivisibilite. Such was the revolutionary title of the 
re-baptised Place Royale, which under the Consulate and 
Empire was called the Place des Vosges, to return once more 
to the old name of Place Royale from 1815 to 1870, when 
as of old it became known again as the Place des Vosges. 

Under Louis-Philippe the artists and men of letters 
replaced the great nobles. In October, 1832, Victor 
Hugo set up his household gods at No. 6, in the old house 
where Marion Delorme lived, and in which the Munici- 
pality of Paris has lately established the delightful and valu- 
able Museum which bears the great poet's name. It is there 
he wrote Ruy Bias, Les Rayons et les Ombres ; it is there 
that the populace in June, 1848, invaded his apartments as 
a Peer of France. " The ragged procession lasted more than 
an hour ; wretchedness in every shape, indignation in every 
form, filed past in gloomy silence . . . they came in by 
one door and went out at another. The roar of cannon 




-/ 



OS 



180 THE PLACE DES VOSGES 

could be heard in the distance. When they were gone, 
it was found that those naked feet had trampled nothing 
wantonly, that their powder-blackened hands had pilfered 
nothing." l 

Then presently, one by one, the artists and men of 
letters departed in their turn ; on almost every door may 
be read : " Apartment to Let," and this noble Square, 
one of the finest in Paris, is abandoned to desolation ! 

A Parisian and a lover of the great city, H. Galli, 
who represents this old-world quarter on the Municipal 
Council, has dreamt a fascinating dream : — To restore the 
Place to its old beauty. A garden a la francaise, with 
bold heraldic arabesques and harmonious clumps of trees, 
whose many-coloured borders should spread, as it were, a 
vast carpet of flowers over this huge space of ground, 
now so bare and dismal. Then, if the illustrious shades of 
the famous inhabitants of the old Place Royale should 
venture to revisit their ancient haunts, they would find, 
restored by pious hands, the same picturesque scene once 
so renowned as the abode of art and eloquence, the 
favourite home of brave men and beautiful women. 

1 Victor Hugo, Actes ct Paroles (Paris-Rome, pp. vi and vii). 



A 



THE PASSAGE CHARLEMAGNE 

HOTEL DE SENS— RUE CHARLES-V. 

UTUMN in Paris is delightful. Nothing can be more 
exquisite than these silvery mornings when the 
beautiful city is veiled with a delicate grey mist. It is 
not the gloom)-, depressing grey of winter, but rather a 
light film that floats over everything, softening the dis- 
tances and outlines, half hiding the hideousness of modern 
buildings and enabling lovers of the Past to see their 
dreams as it were materialised and evoke the scenes of 
other days amid the vague, opalescent vapours. Yes, 
Autumn is the season for long, leisurely explorations of 
the old quarters of the city, along streets where the grass 
grows, in melancholy, neglected gardens where the foot 
rustles among dead leaves, where purple asters blow and 
box borders run wild give out a strong, heady perfume. 

It is to a very ancient district of Paris we are going to 
guide our readers to-day, a dilapidated quarter where once 
stood the Palaces of the earliest Kings of France, but 
which the centuries have so degraded and mutilated and 
broken up that hardly anything remains but an old-world 
name and sundry memories of old-world events. 

Close by the Station Saint-Paul on the Metro., between 
No. 117, which was the Salle Rivoli (a popular dancing- 
room frequented by all the cook-maids of the neighbour- 

IM 



1 82 WALKS IN PARIS 

hood), and No. 133, the house with the famous balcony 
supported by admirably carved stone dragons, at 1 19 Rue 
Saint- Antoine is the opening of the Passage Charlemagne. 
It is here we propose to make our start. Quaint and 
picturesque, the Passage Charlemagne winds at first be- 
tween grey, ordinary-looking houses, packed close one 
against the other and devoted to a score of mean trades. 
There you will find mattress-cleaners, chair-menders, ver- 
micelli sellers, kosher butchers. . . . Then suddenly, on 
turning a corner, you see, to your surprise and the stirring 
of whatever historical imagination you possess, the impress- 
ive remains of a mansion that under Charles V. was the 
dwelling-place of Hugues Aubryot, Provost of Paris. 1 
The Due d'Orleans, Jean de Montaigu, — beheaded in 1400 
on a charge of sorcery ! — the Connetable de Richemont, 
and other great nobles afterwards, lived there, — till the day 
when the Jesuits purchased it and included it within the 
buildings of their vast College, of which nothing remains 
nowadays but the Church of Saint-Paul and a wing or two 
of the Lycee Charlemagne. 2 Despite the vandalism that 
for centuries has worked its will on these old stones, the 
noble building, ruined as it is, still shows a proud front to 

1 It was King Charles V. who, in 1369, gave Jacques Aubryot the 1500 
gold livres necessary for the purchase of the hotel, as a reward for his " good 
and loyal services ". 

2 Certain portions of the buildings of the Lycee Charlemagne are the 
remains of the old Hotel de Graville d" Anville et de Rochepot, which ex- 
tended from the Rue Saint-Paul to the City Walls, and which in 1580 
became the Professed House of the Jesuit Fathers. The Chapel attached 
to it has become the Church of Saint-Paul-Saint-Louis. Rebuilt in 1630, 
it was dedicated by the Cardinal de Bourbon. The Lycee Charlemagne 
was founded in 1802. — G. Pessard, Dictionnaire historique de Paris. 

One of the gates of the walls of Philippe- Auguste was on the same 
spot as the entrance gateway of the Lycee Charlemagne. — De Rochegude, 
Guide pratique a travers le vieux Paris. 



THE PASSAGE CHARLEMAGNE 183 

the world, and offers a surprising contrast to the hovels 
that surround it. A copper-smith has set up his lean-to 
against graceful Renaissance windows, patched linen is 
hanging from lines stretched across daintily carved cary- 
atides, and poultry feed at the foot of the tower staircase 
where the steel spurs of the ancient denizens of the old 
mansion once rang on the pavement. Above the em- 
blazoned doorway we can discern, half obliterated by the 
rain, the shop-sign of a plumber and glazier ! 

The Rue Charlemagne, by which we come out again, 
leads into the Rue des Jardins, dominated by the vener- 
able dome of Saint- Paul. It is a particularly shabby, 
sordid-looking street, and shows nothing to account for 
its rustic name, a survival from the flower-beds that once 
bloomed on its site. The fact is all these poor streets, 
built on the ruins of the ancient Palace, are reminiscent 
of past splendours ; the Rue des Lions recalls the old Royal 
menagerie, just as the Rue Beautreillis does the vine- 
arbours with their golden grapes where Charles V. took his 
pleasure, and the Rue de la Cerisaie the long pleached 
alleys of cherry-trees belonging to the Hotel Saint-Paul I 
The Rue des Jardins, narrow, filthy, and malodorous, 
slopes down to the Quais, beyond which we catch a 
glimpse of water and blue sky in the distance. On either 
hand a line of dark, squat houses, dripping with damp, 
shelter a wretched population ; women in bed-gowns, 
their hair straggling in their eyes, work and gossip in 
front of massive doorways of the seventeenth century, 
and swarms of dirty, laughing, pretty children with tousled 
manes play in the gutter or chase each other shouting 
and screaming past the poverty-stricken shops that share 



1 84 



WALKS IN PARIS 



the street with miserable-looking lodgings of the lowest 

class, where a night's 
accommodation is ad- 
vertised at fifty cen- 
times. It was in the 
Rue des Jardins, — so 
says tradition, — 
where the house No. 9 
now stands, that the 
great Rabelais died. 

Within a (ew steps 
is the Rue de I'Ave- 
Maria, which affords 
a fine peep of the 
lofty front of the 
Hotel de Sens. 1 This 
noble building, still 
admirable in its de- 
cay, is one of the 
most remarkable re- 
maining specimens of 
the architecture of 
the fifteenth century. 
Bishops, Cardinals, 
Royal Highnesses, 
amongst them Mar- 
guerite de Valois — 
Queen M argot — 
fell on evil days ; the 




Hotel de Sens 



have dwelt there. 



Then it 



1 The Hotel de Sens was originally the residence in Paris of the 
Archbishops of Sens, when they were Metropolitans of the See of Paris, — 
just as the Hotel Cluny was that of the Abbots of the great Monastery of 
Cluny, in Burgundy. [Transl.] 




Hotel de Sens, Saint- 1 




Ari :hbish< ips ot Se/is, when they were Metropolitans oi'ifrje See of Paris,- - 



just as the Hotel Cluny was that of the Abbots of the great Monaste 
Cluny, in Burgundy. [Transl.] 




Hotel de Sens, Saint-Paul— From Plan of the Qu artier Saint-Paul, by Jaillot, 

1774 



1 86 WALKS IN PARIS 

Hotel de Sens became a coach office, — they even say- 
it was out of its paved yard that, in the days of the 
Directory, rolled the celebrated " Courrier de Lyon," im- 
mortalised by Dennery, which stirred the pity of genera- 
tions of playgoers over the undeserved calamities of the 
unfortunate Lesurques. In the Revolution of 1830 a ball 
struck its facade and remained incrusted in the stone- 
work, — the usual present Revolutions make to our ancient 
monuments. Turn and turn about, occupied by a cab 
proprietor and a general carrier, etc., etc., the Hotel de Sens 
lately sheltered a preserve manufactory, and for supreme 
and final degradation, a picture of the noble building 
served to cover the pots of plum jam and gooseberry 
jelly. 

At No. 15 of the Rue de t Ave- Maria, an hotel nimble 
attracts casual customers. It was formerly the tennis- 
court of the Croix-Rouge ; there the Theatre Illustre gave 
representations of comedy, ana the great Moliere, — who 
lived probably at the corner of the Rue des Jardins, — 
was, it seems, arrested before its doors and clapped in the 
Chatelet, in August, 1645, on the writ of one Antoine 
Fausser, master candlemaker, who claimed the sum of 142 
livres for lights supplied. 

Passing in the Rue Saint-Paul the remains of the 
Hotel la Vieuville, let us go on to the Rut Charles- V., 
which the Paris cabmen will persist in calling the Rue 
Charles-v. A vast mansion, at No. 12, offers an imposing 
front to the street, the Hotel Aubray. It was famous once, 
not to say notorious ; the Marquise de Brinvilliers lived 
there. It was there occurred the long series of murders, 
crimes and abominations, the mere enumeration of which, 
— after so many centuries, — still strikes one as well nigh 




Courtyard of the Hotel de Sens (about 1867) 



1 88 WALKS IN PARIS 

incredible. In his excellent study on Le Dnanc des 
Poisons, our learned friend F. Funck-Brentano tells us 
the detailed story of these odious doings, as the contem- 
porary account left by the Pere Pirot, her confessor, had 
already given a picture of the poisoner, " a little woman, 
very delicately made, with a round face, blue eyes, gentle 
and entirely beautiful, and a complexion extraordinarily 
fair," sowing death broadcast about her. In complicity 
with her lover Sainte-Croix, she prepared her " succession 
powder," a combination " of vitriol, toad's venom and 
rarefied arsenic," says a chronicle of the time! "Who 
could have ever thought," wrote the Lieutenant of Police 
La Reynie, "that a woman born of an honourable family, 
whose face and complexion denoted weakness rather than 
strength, would have made it her amusement to visit the 
hospitals to poison the patients in order to note the divers 
effects of her poison?" Similarly the Marquise tried her 
hand on her own servants. " After eating part of a ham 
his mistress had given him, Francois Roussel felt as if a 
knife had been driven into his heart. . . . " After these 
experiments in anima vili, the Marquise, convinced of 
the efficacy of her " recipe of Glasers " — this was the harm- 
less name she gave her powder — determined to poison 
her father. She succeeded at last, after making "twenty- 
eight or thirty " attempts. Afterwards, in connivance with 
a lackey, she poisoned her two brothers. " Wherever 
she was, she had poison about her ; bottles of arsenic 
were found even in her toilet closet." 

Presently she resolves to "suppress" her sister and 
her sisters-in-law. But the accomplice she chose, Brian- 
court, — a poor Secretary who loved her, — not only refused 
to aid and abet her, but even tried to remonstrate. This 



THE PASSAGE CHARLEMAGNE [89 

was too much ; his death was decreed. An assignation 
was given him for midnight in the Marquise's bed- 
chamber; the simple lover, anticipating the hour, hid 
himself in a lateral gallery and waited. A badly fitting 
casement enables him to see the Brinvilliers, "in her 
nightcap and almost entirely undressed. Holding a candle 
in her hand, she was engaged in dismissing her women 
for the night. The door shut and bolted, she goes to the 
fireplace and opens the wooden panels — it was summer- 
time and the fireplace was closed in with double shutters. 
A man's form comes out on his knees ; it was Sainte - 
Croix, a hat drawn down over his eyes and wearing an 
old, shabby doublet. ... A consultation follows, ending 
in the exchange of endearments, and then Sainte-Croix 
creeps back into his hiding-place, over which the shutters 
are carefully closed." 1 ... At the sight, Briancourt 
guesses what is in store for him, and seized with a trem- 
bling fit leans his head against the glass of the window, 
through which the Brinvilliers, as she turns from the fire- 
place, sees his ashen face of terror. ..." What is wrong 
with you ? why do you not come in ? " . . . Entering 
at last, he reproaches her with the intention of murdering 
him ; she protests, finally gets frightened, and Sainte- 
Croix springs from his place of concealment. The rest of 
the story is well known, — Sainte-Croix's death, the dis- 
covery of her crimes, the excitement in Paris, the execu- 
tion of the murderess and Mme. de Sevignes letter there- 
anent. " ... It is over now, the Brinvilliers is in the 
air ; her poor little body was thrown, after the execution, 
into a huge fire and her ashes scattered to the winds. 
Consequently we are breathing her now, and by the com- 

1 Les Causes Celibres " Le Proces de la Brinvilliers". 



LEXECVTION 

REMAR qv ABLE, 
DE MADAME DE B R L N V I L L I E R S, 




O 






u 
'7. 

O 
•— 

a 



'> 

u 

B 



w 



THE PASSAGE CHARLEMAGNE 191 

munication of the volatile spirits of the air, we shall be taken 
with a poisoning humour that will mightily astonish us all! " 
The hotel where these appalling tragedies were en- 
acted is intact, the fittings unaltered, but by a strange 
revenge of fate, this house of shame and death is to-day 
a sanctuary of charity, a home of peace and repose. For 
years a Religious Community his occupied it, and good 
Sisters in white nun's caps distribute medicines, cod-liver 
oit and slices of bread and butter to the poor girls and 
necessitous old people of this melancholy quarter of the 
town. It is one of these excellent women that greets us 
at the door of this house of terrible associations, and with 
a gentle courtesy does the honours of a melancholy yet 
charming garden surrounded by old ivy-clad walls, from 
which are visible rows of windows surmounted by grinning 
heads, a corner tower wreathed in the tendrils of a wild 
grape-vine and wrought-iron balustrades over which jas- 
mine is trained. There, in a deep peace, blossom many 
coloured phloxes, fuchsias, eglantines, white anemones, 
and the good Mother Superior, her hands crossed inside 
her wide sleeves, tells us with a gentle smile about her 
beloved flowers and her little proteges . . . and all the 
time we are in the garden of the Brinvilliers, and that 
window to the left there is that of the Marquise's chamber 
where she plotted to have poor Briancourt murdered by 
Sainte-Croix, hiding in the great fireplace, surmounted 
now by a mild-eyed Virgin in plaster! . . . Paris has 
many astonishing surprises to offer the curious explorer, 
and this house in the Rue Charles- V. is not one of the 
least strange of the sights our fair Parisiennes may enjoy 
any day in the course of their wanderings about the good 
city of Paris. 



THE IMPASSE VILLEHARDOUIN 

ON Thursday, 22nd October, 18 12, — the very day on 
which the French Army, flying before the flames, 
evacuated Moscow and began the disastrous Russian re- 
treat, — a non-commissioned officer of the Paris garrison 
came to give the watchword to General Malet, detained 
as a political prisoner in the private hospital of Doctor 
Dubuisson, near the Barriere du Trone, at the farther 
end of the Faubourg Saint- Antoine ; l the watchword, by 
a strange coincidence, was " Conspiracy," and the rallying 
signal was " Compiegne ". The General, who had long 
been preparing his coup d'etat, understood that the hour 
had struck for action ; but nothing betrayed his purpose. 
At six o'clock, he dined as usual with the Doctor's 
other boarders. The conversation at dessert passed in 
criticisms of the Jerusalem Delivered then playing at the 
Imperial Academy of Music, in discussions as to the merits 
of Mile, Mars and Mile. Leverd, of the Thedtre-Francais y 
and praises of the wonderful stag Coco, the star of the 
Cirque Franconi ; surprise was expressed at no news 
having arrived from the front for more than a fortnight ; 

1 Archives nationales. — Dossier Malet, F 6499, police generale. 7th 
July, 1810, — petition of Malet to the Emperor. He recapitulates his 
services; e.g. ; " In the year 1806, commanding a body of French troops 
in the Roman States between the Tiber and Naples, he chases and drives 
back the hordes of brigands commanded by Fra Diavolo ". 

192 



THE IMPASSE VILLEHARDOUIN 193 

the fluctuations of the five per cents., for the moment at 
eighty-two, were enlarged on, and the announcement of 
a victor)' was prophesied for the morrow. Malet played 
his usual rubber of whist and retired about ten o'clock 
the winner of a few counters. 

Never had the General appeared more unconcerned. 
After withdrawing to his room, he waited till the house 
was quiet ; then, at eleven o'clock, in pouring rain, he 
crossed the garden, opened the gate with a duplicate 
key he had got possession of, and walked smartly away. 
The Abbe Lafon, a Royalist deacon, like the General 
detained a prisoner for political reasons, followed suit, 
carrying under his arm a thick portfolio stuffed with 
papers, — the official documents of the new Government 
which Malet hoped to substitute for the Imperial regime. 

In all haste the General and the Abbe traversed the 
length of the Faubourg Saint- Antoine — it was raining in 
cataracts, — crossed the Place de la Bastille, then by way 
of the Place Royale and the Rue des Minimes reached 
the Rue Xeuve-Saint-Gilles. A little short of the Rue 
Saint-Louis^ they turned to the right ; before them lay 
the entrance to a narrow alley, the Passage Saint-Pim c, 
into which they dived. A few steps more brought them 
to another alley, a short, muddy cul-de-sac ; at the far 
end stood a gloomy building, the most forbidding in the 
forbidding place ; they pushed open the door, and rapidly 
climbing three flights of steps, found themselves on a 
narrow landing ; a door opened on their right. 

Their host was a Spanish priest, " with a yellow pock- 
marked face," a bilious complexion and a startled look, 
and speaking broken French. He had only been four 
months out of the prison of La Force, where he had 

13 




Impasse VilhJiardouin, in igo5 



THE IMPASSE VILLEHARDOUIN 195 



spent four years. He was called the Abbe Caamano, " a 
highly suspicious person and without visible means of 
subsistence," so ran a police report. For a month he had 
been lodging- in this remote district, one that, from a con- 
spirator's point of view, however, offered many advantages, 
— no neighbours, no inquisitive visitors, a house standing 
by itself surrounded by Religious Houses and vast deserted 
gardens, regions of mystery and silence, yet within two 
steps of the Boulevards ; this in 18 12 meant utter solitude, 
perfect country quietude ! 

Nowadays the Rue Saint-Louis is called Rue de 
Turenne, the Rue and 
cul-de-sac Saint-Pierre 
are known as Rue 
and Impasse VilleJiai - 
douin, and the blind 
alley itself where the 
Abbe Caamano lurked 
is to disappear very 
shortly, and with it 
will be demolished the 
house where the pro- 
logue of this amazing 
drama was enacted. 

Once within Caa- 
mano's rooms — he had made his acquaintance through 
the Abbe" Lafon — Malet opened the window and made 
sure he had not been followed. Then he dated a 
number of orders drawn up beforehand, signed and 
sealed various papers, " ate a morsel of food and drank 
a glass of bordeaux". The rain was still falling; the 
General put on his uniform, which lay all ready on the 




General Malet 



196 WALKS IN PARIS 

Abbe's bed, 1 Mine. Malet having had everything necessary 
conveyed to the cul-de-sac Saint-Pierre some hours before. 
A third accomplice, Boutreux, a poet and a visionary (his 
card as a student of law is among the papers at the 
Archives), who was to play the part of a Commissary of 
Police, merely donned over his civilian clothes a tricolour 
scarf purchased the day before at the Palais-Royal. It 
was now half-past eleven ; at that moment hurried foot- 
steps were heard on the stairs, and a man, in a state of ab- 
solute nudity, rushes into the little room. It was one Rateau, 
a corporal in the Garde de Paris, of the same age as Bout- 
reux, viz., twenty-eight, who appeared in this guise at the 
place appointed by Malet. In the lashing rain Rateau, 
dressed in his uniform, had hailed a fiacre in the Place du 
Louvre, at eleven o'clock, and ordered the driver, cursing 
and swearing the while, to put him down in the cul-de-sac 
Saint-Pierre. . . . On arriving there, what was the 
amazement of the cabman to see the fare he had taken up 
in the Place du Louvre, spring out of the vehicle stark 
naked, carrying his clothes under his arm. . . . Rateau, in 
his eagerness to don as soon as possible the fine blue uni- 
form of an orderly officer which the General had promised 
him, 2 had deemed it the most natural thing in the world 

1 Malet's uniform and pocketbook had been brought by Boutreux to 
Caamano's lodgings. Boutreux had been to fetch them from Mme. 
Malet's bearing a note from the General. — Dossier Malet. 

From Mme. Malet (nee de Balay) : " I have been in confinement 
since 23rd October ; the name I bear is my only crime." — Ibid. 

2 In the last days of September, 1812, a Corporal of the Garde de Paris* 
being on duty at the Odeon Theatre told a certain Collin (popularly known 
as Verdure), an officer on half pay, commanding the guard at the Odeon 
Theatre and living in Paris, Rue Neuve-Guillcmin, No. 7, as they walked 
up and down together under the peristyle of the house during the perfor- 
mance, that he hoped not to remain much longer a Corporal, that he knew 
a General who would make him an Officer and take him as his " aide-de- 
camp." — Archives nationales. — Dossier Malet, F 7, 6500. 



THE IMPASSE VILLEHARDOUIN 197 

to strip in the cab. Malet looked at his watch ; he was 
very calm and had merely substituted the epaulettes of 
a General of Division for his own as a General of Brigade. 
A steaming bowl of punch stood on the chimney- 
piece. . . . 

" Now, gentlemen, the hour is come ! " 

At that moment the Abbe Lafon was seized with a 
sudden panic, and wanted to fly. 

■ £<L %,y*yc.~;./^ (//<yy,„ /A'J^-^A^ .of 6'^A ' .*£~ <rr ,,**£■*•* 

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Autograph of General Malet 

"Too late," was all Malet said . . . "the guillotine is 
at the door ! . . . Forward all ! " 

Our band of conspirators vanished in the darkness. 
It was close on four in the morning, and the rain was still 
coming down. 



198 WALKS IN PARIS 

The public is familiar with the incredible episodes that 
followed in the course of the amazing adventure. At 
half-past four, Malet, in the courtyard of the Popincourt 
barracks, orders the tenth cohort to form square, and 
proclaims: the death of the Emperor, " slain under the 
walls of Moscow," the abolition of the Imperial regime and 
the establishment of a Provisional Government compris- 
ing General Moreau, Carnot, Augereau, Malet, Volney. 
Mathieu de Montmorency, etc. 1 

The Colonel, Soulier, is cajoled and won over, while 
Generals Lahory and Guidal are released from the prison 
of La Forcer There a few hours later their place was 
taken by the Minister of Police, Savary, who, bewildered 
and half dead with terror, told his gaoler : — 

11 I can make nothing of what is going on. . . . God 
knows how it's all going to end ! Give me victuals, lock 
me up in a remote cell . . . and throw the key down the 
well ! " 

1 " At about four in the morning the Sergeant-Major came to the sleep- 
ing-room and ordered us all to fall in on parade in full uniform." (Evidence 
of Corporal Prevot of the Tenth Cohort.) — Archives nationales. — Dossier 
Malet, F 7, 6500. 

" Bezi, Sub-Lieutenant, was with his company at the time of the 
reading of the false orders, but he declares that before the actual read- 
ing began, he had, on hearing of his Majesty's death, an indisposition 
which compelled him to go to the rear, that he only came back when 
the end of the proclamation (senaius-consulte) was being read, and he 
thought the orders had emanated from the lawful authorities." (Signed: 
The Minister of War, Due de Feltre.) — Ibid. 

2 " We arrived by the Rue Saint-Antoine in the street leading to La 
Force, we passed in front of the Gate and the door of the guardroom, 
which is to one side; they were drawn up in fighting trim. I saw the 
aide-de-camp come out of the guardroom and go and speak to the 
General ; then, after some while, two or three persons issued from the 
Main Gate, the first of whom I thought would never have done embracing 
Malet." (Evidence of Gomont, Sub-Lieutenant of the Tenth Cohort.)— 
Ibid. 



THE IMPASSE VILLEHARDOUIN [99 

Before long Pasquier, the Prefet of Police, and I)c s 
marets, the Secretary General, joined Savary in gaol. As 
to Frochot, a man " born to be prefet and resolved to endure 
anything and everything to save his post," Malet recognised 
him for what he was and kept him in office. He 
was jogging quietly into Paris from his country house 
when a messenger handed him a note containing the 
fateful words: "Be quick, be quick, Fuit Imperator !" 
(The Emperor is dead.) Frochot hurries back to his 
post, and it is Colonel Soulier, an unwitting accomplice, 
who receives him at the Prefecture, and conveys the 
orders of the new Government to him. Frochot bows 
and charges his subordinates " to obey all orders they 
might receive." . . . All was going for the best ; General 
Hulin, Commandant of Paris, having indiscreetly asked to 
see the original orders, had had his jaw broken by Malet 
with a pistol shot. 1 It was after this that the Paris street- 
boys, impudent as always, got hold of the phrase ' Bouffe- 
la-Balle," to describe the stout hero of the Bastille! — In 
fact Malet seemed on the point of triumphal success. 

It was at the General Staff Office, in the Place Ven- 
dome, that the catastrophe befell. The Adjutant- Major 
Laborde and the Commandant Doucet, Chief of the Staff, 
hesitate and look as if they smelt a rat. "The General, 
who is watching them, feels he has not a moment to spare 

1 " Malet halted us for a moment opposite Saint-Roch and went to say 
a word at the wineseller's shop which still stands at the corner of the 
Rue de la Convention. On our reaching the street leading to the Plac e 
Vendome, he halted us in lront of the hairdresser's next door to Kimbault's 
wineshop, and then before M. le Comte Hulin's door. As I am rather 
short, I stood up on tiptoe to see where a woman's screams I could hear 
came from. ... It was Mme. Hulin." — Archives ncitionalcs. — Dossiei 
Malet, F 7, 6500. 



200 WALKS IN PARIS 

and loosens his pistols . . . but a mirror at his back be- 
trays what he is after. ' Malet is seized, disarmed, bound 
and gagged ! Guidal is arrested at table, Lahory at the 
Ministry of Police, where he was busy signing orders, and 
the two prisoners who had been released at seven, re- 
turned at half-past eleven to La Force to take the places 
of the men they had themselves incarcerated about nine ! 

By noon all was over. Next day the Ministers 
showed themselves at the Opera, and Cambaceres gave a 
magnificent banquet to his Colleagues at the Rocher de 
Cancalc in the Rue Montorgueil. 

The Imperial justice was swift and sure. On 27th 
October, Malet and twenty-four of his companions appeared 
before a Military Commission. Not a single Advocate 
had been found bold enough to undertake such a case, 
and the General defended himself. Some of his haughty 
answers will be remembered : — 

" Who were your accomplices ? " the President Dejean 
asked him. 

" All France . . . including yourself, sir, if I had been 
successful ! . . ." 

Invited to speak in his defence, Malet rose to his feet 
and uttered merely the words : " A man who has consti- 
tuted himself the defender of the rights of his country has 
no need to plead his case. . . . He triumphs or dies ! " — 
and sat down again. 

At five in the morning the Commission pronounced 
fourteen death sentences, and on Thursday, 29th October 
1 8 12, at half-past three in the afternoon, in dark rainy 
weather, six hackney-coaches, escorted by gendarmes, set off 
at a smart trot to carry the condemned men to the Plaine 
de Crenelle, the regular place for executions at that period. 



THE IMPASSE VILLEHARDOUIN 201 

The drums beat, and Malet and his accomplices set their 
backs against the ramparts of the outer boulevard bound- 
ing the precincts of the Ecole Militaire. Then the General, 
overmastering with his voice of command the protests and 
complaints of his companions cried : " It is to me belongs 
the honour of commanding here. . . . Make ready, firing 
party . . . present, fire ! " and more than a hundred balls 
crashed into the band of brave men, at point blank range. 
An old soldier, who had had no remotest inkling of the 
meaning of the terrible drama in which he had been an 
unwitting actor, one Captain Borderieux, actually died 
shouting "Vive l'Empereur!" . . . Streaming with blood, 
but still keeping his feet, Malet only dropped at the second 
volley, acclaiming the name of Liberty ! ] 

We were anxious to revisit the Impasse Villehardouin, 
the not inappropriate scene where the prologue of this 
tragic drama was enacted. It is a narrow alley, filthy and 
malodorous, a iew yards long and blocked at the end 
by a gloomy wall. At the foot of this barrier, in the mud, 
an apprentice-lad is knocking together some packing cases 
with a hammer. The last house on the left is marked 
No. 2. Yes, that is the place. At the end of a dark 
passage is a narrow wooden staircase, shiny with dirt, the 
worn, uneven steps of which seem to cheat the visitor's tread. 

1 " Note to the Minister of Police. The Councillor of State, PreTet of 
Police, informs Your Excellency that this affair of Malet, Guidal, Lahorie, 
has suggested the idea to him that it would be desirable to recover from 
the hands of the old clothes dealers of Paris all the uniforms of Officers of 
Rank that might happen to be amongst their stock. 

Answer : But how pay lor them ? " — Archives nationales. 

Answer: "To take the names and addresses of purchasers who buy 
them and communicate them to the Police Commissary of the District." 
Follow denunciations of certain clothes dealers. — Ibid. 



202 WALKS IN PARIS 

Let us mount to the third floor. Three doors open on 
a confined landing ; on the right is the one by which Malet 
walked quietly into the Abbe Caamano's room. . . . We 
follow his example, — to be greeted by a very unpleasant 
smell ; the place has not been cleaned up yet, and three 
tiny children are playing with bits of rag in the room where 
words of such serious import were exchanged. The floor 
is littered with pots and pans ; on the walls, beside sticky- 
looking oleographs, hang several pipe-racks ; on the chest 
of drawers, a model made of corks represents a ruined 
temple amidst a vaguely indicated Roman campagna ; on 
the marble mantelpiece of Louis XIV. date stand a row 
of pickle bottles. The children stare with big eyes of 
astonishment and amusement at the inquisitive strangers 
who have invaded their domicile. A family of canaries 
are singing with might and main in a cage suspended be- 
tween the two windows giving on the Impasse. 

As we leave the house, a row of peering faces bends 
over the balustrades. The light falls askance on them, 
as it must hive done on the features of the agents of 
Fouche and Real when they invaded Caamano's lodging 
the day after Malet's arrest. In a moment of indiscretion, 
over a glass of wine at Tachera's, a blind man who kept 
a restaurant in the Rue de la Corderie, the coachman 
George described his amazement when he saw his eccen- 
tric fare spring out of his fiacre in the primitive costume 
before mentioned, and this gave the Police the clue they 
had been so keenly on the alert for, and ended in their 
discovering the place where the conspiracy had originated. 
The house was ransacked thoroughly from top to bottom, 
from basement to attic. In Caamano's fireplace was found 
a great heap of ashes, and amongst them several orderly 






THE IMPASSE VILLEHARDOUIN 203 

buttons, coming from Rateau's uniform, who was in just 
as fierce a hurry to get rid of his fine clothes as he had 
originally been to put them on. . . . The cage was empty, 
Caamano safe in prison, the Abbe Lafon vanished into 
thin air. . . . l The well was dragged, and a sabre and 
two swords fished up, and the whole Imperial Police force 
craned their necks over the well head, or well heads, 
common to the two adjoining premises, Nos. 2 a:d 4. — 
• The well in question has disappeared ; a rusty pulley and 
some cramps fixed in the partition wall are all the vestiges 
that now remain to be seen. Above our heads rise, dark 
and dismal, the five floors of the squalid building; there 
is a pervading smell of neglect and damp and abject 
poverty. 

One must have learned something of the story of this 
swift and overwhelming tragedy to experience any special 
emotion on treading the greasy flags of this confined yard, 
barely ten feet long and less than seven wide, a sort of 
cesspool where the very daylight is jaundiced. But with 
this knowledge, the memories evoked seem only the more 
tragic in face of these mean miry walls, when we recall the 
bloody scene of the Plaine de Grenelle and the rampart 
pitted with bullets. . . . 

1 On August, 1814, a letter from the Secretary General of Police put 
at the disposition of M. l'Abbe Lafon, 38 Rue de Charenton, "positive 
information as to the sentence on General Malet ". — Archives nationales. 
— Dossier Malet. 



THE RUE DES BARRES 

SAINT-GERVAIS— THE RUE GRENIER-SUR-L'EAU— THE RUE 
GEOFFROY-L'ASNIER 

THE day of 9 Thermidor, year II., which witnessed 
the end of the Terror and the fall of Robespierre, 
was equally disastrous to the citoyen Courvol, Crier of the 
National Convention. A report addressed by this un- 
fortunate functionary to the " Representative " Courtois 
will fully satisfy us on this point : On 9 Thermidor, at 
midday, I was directed to convey a decree to the Hotel 
de Ville 1 directing the Mayor of Paris, the National 

x The present Hotel de Ville, one of the finest and most elegant 
buildings of Paris, is entirely modern in construction, though a replica, 
enlarged and enriched, of the old, historic Hotel de Ville, in which the 
stirring events of 9 Thermidor described in the text occurred, and which 
was burnt to the ground by the Communards in 1871. The rebuilding 
covered the years 1876-84. 

The old Hotel de Ville was begun in 1533, but was not completed 
before the reign of Henri IV., at the beginning of the following century. 
It was repeatedly enlarged, — the last time in 1841. 

The building occupies the East side of the open square formerly 
known as the Place de Greve, the principal, though not the only, scene of 
executions for many centuries, now renamed the Place de V Hotel de 
Ville. 

It has figured conspicuously in successive revolutions, having always 
served as the rallying place of the popular faction. " On 14th July, 1789, 
the captors of the Bastille were conducted in triumph into the great hall. 
Three days later Louis XVI. came in procession from Versailles to the 
Hotel de Ville under the protection of Bailly and other popular deputies, 
thus publicly testifying his submission to the will of the National Asembly. 
... On 27th July, 1794 (9 Thermidor), when the Commune, the tool em- 

204 



THE RUE DES BARRES 205 

Agent and the abandoned Henriot to appear at the bar 
of the Convention. ... As authorised by right and 
usage, I asked the Mayor to give me a receipt for the 
decree ; just as he was going to write it, Henriot snatched 
the pen out of his hand, shouting : " Go to the devil ! 
people don't give receipts at such a time as this. Go and 
tell your d d scoundrels that we are here deliberat- 
ing how to purge them." (Nota bene, he was already 
drunk.) — Then turning to the gendarmes, " Keep a hold 
on that fellow," he ordered gruffly. It was only by dint 
of cunning I managed, after an hour and a half, to get 
myself released. . . . When I got back to the Conven- 
tion, Thuriol, who occupied the President's chair and to 
whom I proceeded to render account of my commis- 

ployed by Robespierre against the Convention, was holding one of its meet- 
ings here, Barras with five battalions forced his entrance in the name of the 
Convention. . . . Here was also celebrated the union of the July 
Monarchy with the bourgeoisie, when Louis-Philippe presented himself 
at one of the windows, in August, 1830, and in view of the populace 
embraced Lafayette. From the steps of the Hotel de Ville, on 24th 
February, 1848, Louis Blanc proclaimed the institution of the Republic. 
From 4th September, 1870, to 28th February, 1871, the Hotel de Ville was 
the seat of the ' gouvernement de la defense nationale,' and trom igth 
March to 22nd May, 1871, that of the Communards and their ' comite du 
salut public' 

" The Hotel de Ville having been doomed to destruction by the 
leaders of the Commune, heaps of combustibles, steeped in petroleum, 
and barrels of gunpowder were placed in various parts of the building. 
. . . On the morning of 24th May a fearful struggle began in the Place 
de VHotel de Ville. and it was protracted without intermission until the 
following morning. As the insurgents were gradually driven back, they 
gave vent to their rage and despair by setting on fire many of the sur- 
rounding buildings, and finally ignited the combustibles in the Hotel de 
Ville, although about 600 of their party were still within its precincts. 
The troops, now masters of the whole neighbourhood and granting no 
quarter, directed an incessant fire against the unhappy occupants, all of 
whom perished." [Transl.] 



206 WALKS IN PARIS 

sion, answered me : " Go and be d d ! so much the 

worse for you ! Give me some peace, do ! " 1 

These brutal and insulting replies, twice thrown in the 
teeth of the worthy Courvol, a man and a "Auissier" could 
only be excused, if excused at all, by the appalling 
hurricane let loose at the moment over Paris and driving 
all men frantic, the duel to the death being fought out 
that day between the party of the Terror and the Moder- 
ates. The swiftly changing phases of the Titanic struggle 
are familiar, — the Convention outlaws, and then arrests 
in full sitting, Robespierre, his brother, Saint-Just, Lebas, 
Couthon and their accomplices, the Sections release the 
prisoners and bring them in triumph to the " Maison Com- 
mune" the Place de Greve is filled with crowds carrying 
bayonets and pikes and dragging cannon, Robespierre 
hangs undecided, hesitating to sign the call to arms, to 
unchain the insurrection. The Convention on the other 
hand, declared itself en permanence ', and fully expected 
to be murdered where they sat; Collot d'Herbois, who 
was acting as President, wore his hat in sign of distress 
and danger, and Durand-Maillane confessed next day 
" he had never believed himself nearer his end ". Eventu- 
ally the Convention resolves to take the offensive. Repre- 
sentatives, plumed and scarfed, and escorted by gend- 
armes and officers cairying torches, proclaim through 
the streets and squares of Paris the " outlawry of the 
rebels ". In beating rain and fearful heat two columns, 
led by Barras, Leonard Bourdon, Laurent Lecointre and 
Freron, march upon the Hotel de Ville, — one following 
the Quaz's, to attack in front from the Place de Greve, the 
other taking the line of the Rue Saint-Honore. 

Report of Courtois, relating to the events of 9 Thermidor, year II. 




o 



u 

- 






208 WALKS IN PARIS 

At half-past one in the morning the troops surrounded 
the building, in which the Council of Insurrection still 
sat over their deliberations. It was at this crisis that the 
gendarme Meda, — nicknamed Veto, a youth of nineteen, — 
without uniform, with blazing eyes, holding a brace of 
pistols concealed inside his shirt and supported merely 
by three or four grenadiers, sprang up the stairs leading 
to the Cabinet Vert, — close to the Throne Room, — where 
were assembled the two Robespierres and their most 
trusty partisans. Though representing himself as "on 
secret service " of the last importance, it was only through 
a storm of blows and threats and insults that Meda 
succeeded in forcing his way up the staircase which was 
thronged with "stalwarts" and "die-hards" and " Incor- 
ruptibles ". Reaching the door at last, he throws it open 
and hurls himself upon Robespierre, " threatens him with 
the point of his sabre at his heart, takes one of his pistols 
in the left hand, and seizing the other with his right, fires 
it off at him ". At least that is what he says in the fan- 
faronading account he has left of his exploits. 1 

... A few minutes later the troops were pouring into 
the Hotel de Ville. Lebas blew out his brains ; the cripple 
Couthon, paralysed from the waist downwards, dragging 
his inert limbs after him and using his hands as crutches, 
hid under a table. Meantime Dumas, who only the 
day before had sat as president of the Revolutionary 
Tribunal, was smelling at a flask of mint-water, which a 
spy of the Committees snatched out of his hands, " think- 
ing it was poison ; " while Saint-Just, impassive and 
dignified, " his eyes big with sorrow," watched his friends 

1 Precis historique des evenements dn 9 Thermidor, by Meda, ex- 
gendarme. 



THE RUE DES BARRES 



209 






dying around him. Robespierre, his broken jaw hanging 
loose, lay stretched at the foot of the speaker's tribune. 
11 He did not move, but breathed stertorously and his 
forehead wrinkled all over." He was the butt of all sorts 
of insults : " Sire, is Your Majesty in pain ? " — " There's 
a fine King for you ! " — v ' To the kennel with him ! " — 




Hotel de Ville in 1830 

" Stand aside, do, and let 'em see how prettily their King 
sleeps." l Robespierre the younger had vaulted out of one 
of the windows opening on the Place de Greve, — which was 
still lighted by the street lamps kindled at ten o'clock by 
order of the Commune ; 2 — he had taken off his shoes and 

1 Report of Courtois: Note supplied by Freron. 

2 Evidence of Bochard, Concierge of the Hotel de Ville (Report of 
Courtois). 

14 



210 WALKS IN PARIS 

held them in his hand while he climbed along the cornice 
outside. He could hear the shouts of acclamation that 
greeted the triumph of the Convention ; then leaping for 
the points of the bayonets he could see gleaming below 
him, he crashed head-first on to the steps of the Great 
Staircase, injuring in his fearful fall two citizens, one of 
whom, a man named Chabru, was almost killed by the 
violence of the impact ! The young Revolutionary was 
taken up, horribly mutilated, but still breathing. 

The body of Lebas is buried in the Cimetiere Saint- 
Paul ; Couthon, half dead and bound on a litter, Henriot, 
dragged out of a sewer where he had run to earth, covered 
with mire and blood, full of bayonet wounds and one eye 
hanging out of its socket, Robespierre, his clothes in 
ribbons, shoeless and his stockings dangling about his 
ankles, his head wrapped in bloodstained rags, Saint-Just, 
impassive as ever, unruffled and disdainful, are removed, 
some to the Hotel-Dieu to receive first aid for their injuries, 
the rest to the Conciergene to be locked up. When two 
o'clock struck that morning, the tragedy was finished ; the 
citoyen Legend re locked the doors of the Hotel de Ville, 
now silent and empty, and put the keys in his pocket ! 

Then presently the little Rue des Barres, usually so 
dark and calm and peaceful, was filled with lights and 
shouts and ugly cries in the darkness of the early morning. 
Shutters were warily opened, and pale anxious faces 
thrust out of the windows, gazing with horror at the dread- 
ful sight of a man bathed in blood, with shattered limbs, 
being carried by in a chair to the Sectional Committee 
sitting en permanence at the Hotel des Barres (formerly so 
called), near the Quai de la Greve. The President, Gali- 



THE RUE DES BARRES 211 

bert, and the Secretary-Clerk, Pajot, then put it on record 
41 that the individual was the citoyen Robespierre the 
younger, Deputy of the Convention, dangerously wounded, 
almost lifeless and not in a condition to be transported 
without risk before the Committee of Public Safety ". Not- 
withstanding the order soon arrived to convey him thither, 
" no matter what condition he may be in " ; and the un- 
happy man was carried in the midst of a howling mob to 
the Tuileries ! . . . The same evening, at seven o'clock, 
all were guillotined. 1 

The house has disappeared, demolished on the forma- 
tion of the Rue du Pont- Louis- Philippe, but the Rue des 
Barres has preserved its tragic look. Dark, narrow and 
crooked, perched as it were above the neighbouring alleys, 
it begins towards the Seine with a sharp uphill slops and 
ends at the Rue Francois-Miron in a stairway of seven 
stone steps. Halfway up the incline, the chief and only 
ornament of the street, stands the dark porch with its rain- 
washed pillars of one of the doors of the Church of Saint 
Gervais. Plain and severe in style, dark and mysterious 
in the dim light of its painted windows, it is one of the few 
Paris churches that keep something of the homely, quiet 
charm of a village sanctuary. Bossuet preached from its 

1 " The death-carts appeared. They contained twenty-one doomed 
men. In the first rode Couthon, Henriot, and beside Robespierre the muti- 
lated and bleeding remains of his brother who was dying for him ! Saint- 
Just, calm as ever, was buried in his own thoughts. The dead body of Le 
Bas closed the procession. As Robespierre went by, the gendarmes pointed 
at him with their sabres, and the people shouted, 'Death to the tyrant," 
—and the man who uttered the cry with the most savage fury was 
Carrier! " — Histoire Parlementaire, vol. xxxiv., p. 96. 

" A woman pushed forward, screaming out : ' Go, villain, go down 
to Hell, with the curses of every wife and every mother on your head ! " 
— Nougaret, vol. iv., p. 343. 



212 WALKS IN PARIS 

pulpit, Mme. de Sevigne was married there, Philippe de 
Champagne, Scarron, Crebillon were buried there. 

To the left of the Church-door in the corner of the little 
open space, at No. 2 in the Rue Francois-Miron, push 
open an old door of a dirty green surmounted by the 
canary -yellow signboard of a firm of furniture removers ; 
it hides one of the most picturesque bits anywhere to be 
found. After mounting four well-worn steps and traversing 
a dark vaulted passage-way, you will be surprised to see 
a row of old buildings of the seventeenth century, small 
and squat, squeezed one against the other, and black with 
the smoke and grime of years. These low-browed hovels 
seem incrusted as it were on the towering wall, rich with 
Gothic carving and bristling with gargoyles, of the square 
tower of Saint-Gervais. Meagre windows, guarded by 
a double fence of rusty iron bars, dusty gratings stopped 
with clumsy cross-pieces of wood, through which emerge 
stumpy stove-pipes, give on a confined passage-way, from 
which open a row of narrow doors that are more like slits 
in the grimy wall. 

It is a relic of the outbuildings formerly attached to 
the Church ; all the rest has disappeared or been altered 
beyond recognition. Thus at No. 1 5 in the Rue des Barres 
a confectioner has installed his furnaces and boilers and 
basins of ruddy copper in the desecrated remains of an 
old Chapel. Caramels and almond drops and fondants 
are being made under Gothic vaults of the fifteenth century, 
alongside carved pillars that are still blackened with the 
smoke of tapers burnt by the Faithful before the altar ! 

On the first floor the windows of an eating-room open 
upon the marvellous prospect offered by the Church roof 
— a labyrinth of gargoyles and pinnacles and flying but- 




The Charniers (Mortuary Chapels) of the Church of Saint-Gervais 



214 



WALKS IN PARIS 



tresses, through the openwork of which glimpses of hazy 
distance can be caught. Swallows fly twittering amid this 

forest of stone. 
Carillon chimes 
set the air and 
the veiy windows 
vibrating, and 
the Angelus bell 
rings out, seem- 
ing to speak the 
mystic language 
of another world. 
One'sthoughts 
are instinctively 
carried back sev- 
eral centuries . . . 
and it is a cruel 
surprise, on leav- 
ing the quiet 
place, to find one- 
self facing the 
Rue Grenier-sur- 
PEaUy which 
looks like a cleft, 
a black gully, be- 
tween two rows of 
leprous, tumble- 
down houses. 
Publicans and 
cobblers have made the street their own. You can find 
lodgings for the night there, and get your throat cut into 
the bargain; only a few months ago two "bullies" mur- 




Riti- Grenier-sur-l'Eau 



THE RUE DES BARRES 



21 



dered an unfortunate there 

with the motto : 

" Gegene has my 

heart, till death 

us do part " ; she 

met her death 

for the crime of 

not having " sent 

tobacco and 

pocket - money " 

to the aforesaid 

Gegene, who was 

"doing time" in 

gaol. 

This grim 
street opens into 
the Rue Geoffroy- 
t Asnier, where 
once stood sump- 
tuous Palaces 
inhabited by fam- 
ilies bearing the 
noblest names, 
— Preuilly, Cler- 
mont - G a 1 1 e r- 
ande, Breteuil, 
La Rochefou- 
cauld, Galliffet. 
A few doonvavs 
of proud and 
stately propor- 
tions, two or 



The girl's arm was tattooed 




Rue Geoffroy-VAsiiia- 






2i6 WALKS IN PARIS 

three dilapidated balconies, some broken bits of carving, 
still bear witness to this past splendour. 1 At No. 26 is 
the beautiful entrance gate of the Hotel Chalons- Luxem- 
bourg ; almost unaltered, the house stands imposingly 
between a stately courtyard with ivy-mantled walls and 
still showing its old stone posts joined together by bars of 
iron, that in former days guarded the ruddy brick and 
carved stone-work against the shock of coach-wheels, and 
on the other front a delightful garden overgrown with 
greenery. 

It is a fragment of wreckage from the Grand Steele 
rising in this poor, squalid quarter. Instinctively we call 
up the rough figures of the hardy Captains and sour-faced 
Parlementaires who must have haunted it in those days, 
and above all the graceful shades of the fair Precieuses 
who swept its floors with their silken trains and displayed 
their stiff brocaded stomachers beneath its lofty ceilings. 
. . . But alas ! what a disillusion awaits one on coming out, 
to find underneath the richly carved scutcheons of the en- 
trance a tavern sign, on which the publican who occupies 
the noble old building advertises " vin d'Aude at 10 
centimes the glass" for the benefit of his thirsty cus- 
tomers ! 

1 Also noteworthy: No. 22, fine carved doorway ; No. 20, Hotel ofM. 
de Vilemontre (1668) and of J.-B. de Machault (1713) ; No 19, remains of 
the Hotel de Preuilly ; other curious old houses at Nos. 1, 4, 9 and 42. — (De 
Rochegude.) 



SAINT-MERRI AND NEIGHBOURHOOD 

THE RUES PIERRE-AU-LARD, BRISE-MICHE AND TATLLE- 
PAIN, THE RUE DE VENISE, THE RUE QUINCAMPOIX 

HHE dawn of 6th June, 1832, broke stormy and 
A threatening over Paris, and when the first beams 
of day brightened the housetops, there could be seen in 
the Rue Saint-Martin, a few yards from the Church of 
Saint-Merri and at the intersection of the Rue Aubry-le- 
Boucher, a handful of men, haggard and tattered, their 
eyes blazing with fever, grouped behind a blood-stained 
barricade above which floated the red flag. Before 
them, all about them, lying at their very feet, were 
the bodies of the dead, National Guards riddled with 
bullets, torn with knives, crushed under paving-stones and 
heavy pieces of furniture hurled from the neiVhbourino- 
roofs, bearing mute witness to the savage struggle that, 
beginning the evening before about five o'clock, had been 
protracted far into the night. Over the insurgents' heads 
boomed the melancholy tones of the great "tocsin" of 
Saint-Merri. 

Following on the burial of General Lamarque, who 
had died pressing to his lips the sword offered him by the 
Bonapartist Officers of the Hundred Days, a vast Re- 
volutionary agitation had galvanised Paris. The Secret 
Societies, at that time powerful and numerous, the sur- 

217 



218 WALKS IN PARIS 

vivors of the Great Revolution, the erstwhile soidiers of 
the Empire, the malcontents of every party, united by the 
bond of a common hatred of Louis-Philippe, had met 
by general consent round the grave of the patriot General. 
Alike from beneath workmen's blouses and citizens' black 
coats could be seen peeping pistol-butts and dagger- 
hilts, mere boys might be observed loading firearms, using 
for wads the posters on the walls, the pupils of the Ecolc 
Poly technique had forced the gates and come to join the 
fierce threatening crowd that accompanied the funeral 
car. The Marechal Soult, Minister of War, was full of 
apprehension and had turned out the whole garrison of 
Paris and the National Guard to boot. The scent of 
battle was in the air. Hostilities broke out with brutal, 
ferocious suddenness, and for a brief while the insurgents 
were masters of the heart of Paris ; they encamped tri- 
umphantly beside the Hotel de Ville, which they tried 
desperately to seize. All night long the mutual slaughter 
went on ; then, one after the other, the Government troops 
recaptured the positions the enemy had forced. Only 
one, the great barricade of Saint-Merri y still held out ; its 
defenders, about 130 in number, grouped round an old 
" hero of July," Jeanne by name, had already repulsed 
half a score furious assaults. Resolved to sell their lives 
dearly, they awaited the final attack, well knowing that 
the day just dawning would mark their last hour on 
earth. 

In the alleys and crossways and mean streets that lay 
about them, they could hear the " general muster " sounded, 
and those loud, vague sounds that show a great body of 
men is making preparations for attack ; farther away 
cavalry could be seen galloping, and artillery waggons 







Saint-Merri 



220 WALKS IN PARIS 

rumbling over the paving-stones. As the sun rose higher, 
the din and confusion grew and grew, while the great bell 
of Saint-Merri^ booming on unceasingly, seemed to be 
sounding their passing knell. . . . From six in the morn- 
ing assault followed quick on assault ; shots rained from 
the windows and roofs and even cellar-gratings of the 
houses ; so thick was the smoke, the wretches so busy 
killincr each other in the semi-darkness could not see ten 
yards in front of them ! Balls, grapeshot. bullets sent the 
stonework and plaster of the walls flying in showers, and 
splinters from the paving flags were shot up like hail. A 
formidable detachment of the army of Paris had to be 
detailed to reduce this one barricade, whose last remain- 
ing defenders, red with blood and black with powder, 
dying of hunger and thirst, at end of ammunition and 
supplies, were perishing before closed doors, beneath the 
blazing sun of a June day. About six in the evening the 
barricade was rushed from three sides at once, and the 
troops, closing in with furious impetuosity, 1 swarmed up 
the piled flags, slippery with blood. Jeanne and the last 
surviving insurgents tried to open themselves a passage 
with the bayonet ; the greater part were killed on the 
spot, the rest, wounded and bleeding, escaped over the 
roofs of the neighbouring houses. 

Xext day profound peace reigned in Paris ; the city 
was subdued and submissive. Only a long black line of 
weeping women, visiting the Morgue to identify the 
bodies of the unknown victims of the fray, testified to the 
savage fury of yesterdays internecine struggle. 

The Quartier Saint- Merri^ the scene of this sanguin- 
ary drama, has altered little, and it is still quite easy to 
find the marks of the balls that pitted the housefronts 



SAINT-MERRI AND NEIGHBOURHOOD 22 r 

abutting on the Church. At the same time these sudden 

risings were of such frequent occurrence in the reign of 

Louis-Philippe that Paris seemed at last to take them as 

a matter of course. The insurrection ended, life resumed 

its peaceable routine, and the same roof often sheltered 

the National Guardsman and the Insurgent of the day 

before. Still cases of friction did sometimes arise. My 

parents knew an old lady living near Saint-Merri, who 

for years never passed the door of the tenant occupying 

the suite below her own without a shudder. Surprise 

being expressed at this chronic apprehension, she told 

how one night after an emeute — her husband had been 

fighting all day in the ranks of the National Guard— she 

saw a hand-litter deposited at the house door covered 

with a packing-cloth. Frantic and dazed with fright, she 

dashed out, lifted a corner of the cloth, and recognising 

in the bleeding, agonised face, — the poor man's jaw was 

fractured — the features of the lodger underneath : " Ah ! 

what joy!" she cried, "it's you, M. Vitry ! " M. Vitry 

from that day forward had always shown her a certain 

coldness ! 

Passing along the Rue du Cloitre-Saint-Merri, over- 
hung by the projecting gargoyles of the Church, and 
leaving on our left the narrow Rue Taille-Pain, where 
great black beams cross and re-cross shoring up the dilapi- 
dated houses that otherwise would come tumbling down 
on each other, we make our way into a strange network 
of mean, narrow, crooked streets, blackened as if by fire, 
recalling the lanes and blind alleys of Amsterdam, or 
Gustave Dore's illustrations of Balzac's Contes Drdlatiques. 
The very names date from the Middle Ages ;— the Rue 
Pierre-au-Lard, the Rue Brise-Miche, the Rue Taille- 



Ill 



WALKS IN PARIS 



Pain, twist and turn and intersect one another so as to 
offer the most extraordinarily picturesque vistas. You 
have to assure yourself it is really and truly the Church 
of Saint- Merri standing out there at the end of the Rue 
Brise-Miche before you can believe yourself within a 




Rue Taillc-Pain, in 1906 

hundred miles of Paris. Handcarts are stabled in old 
courtyards of the sixteenth century, acrid sulphurous 
fumes issue through thick bars blocking the windows of 
an old mansion dropping to pieces under the joint effects 



SAINT-MERRI AND NEIGHBOURHOOD 223 



of saltpetre and damp; what can these strange trades be, 
carried on in these stone casements that look so grim and 
repellant, guarded by heavy doors studded with rusty nails ? 



^~ 




U 







Rite dc Veiii se 



Old clothes dealers, rag-pickers, receivers of stolen goods, 
it may be, inhabit these disreputable streets ; hungry- 
looking curs are nosing the gutters, and a powerful stench 
of bad wine and onion-stew catches the visitor in the throat. 



224 WALKS IN PARIS 

By way of the Rue Simon-le- Franc and the Rue- Beau - 
bourg we reach the Rue de Venise, a mere cleft as it were 
between two gloomy walls, even more dismal in appear- 
ance than its neighbours. Old mansions of the seventeenth 
century are let out to lodgers for the night, perfect hotbeds 
of disease and wretchedness ; four lamps advertise these 
haunts to the tramps and vagabonds in quest of a bed at 
30 centimes. A caged blackbird whistles with a rich fluty 
note where it hangs between two rain-pipes over the pave- 
ment littered with cast-off shoes. Within grimy doorways 
can be made out dark stairways sticky with filth ascending 
into the blackness above. . . . Yet the other day when 
we were there, — a startling, living contrast, — three little 
maids with flaxen heads were decorating a miniature altar 
in honour of the " mois de Marie" in one corner of a fetid 
drinking-shop, watched with softened eyes by a couple of 
atrocious harridans. Our day had been full of surprises, 
and truly this was not the least, or the least agreeable, of 
them ! 

At the corner of the Rue de Venise and the Rue Quin- 
campoix, at the sign of the " Arrive e de Venise'' No. 54, 
a wineshop-keeper is serving absinthe to four customers 
lounging in front of a zinc counter. This was in old days 
the fashionable tavern of the Epee de Bois, frequented by 
Racine, Boileau, Marivaux and their friends. Under the 
Regency, in 1720, a fearful crime was committed there ; 
the young Comte de Horn, a German Prince related to 
the Regent, in connivance with two libertines of his ac- 
quaintance, murdered a man of wealth named Lacroix in 
the hope of robbing him. 

It was in the days when all Paris had gone mad over 



SAINT-MERR] AND NEIGHBOURHOOD 



--o 



Law's bank and the Mississippi bubble. 1 In this Rue Quin- 
campoi.w where the Scotch financier had installed his 
offices, the meanest hovel was worth untold gold ; shares 
were bought and sold in even- house in the street, every 
room was turned into an extemporised stock-exchange. 
The world was run frantic ! Great noblemen, magistrates, 
dancing-girls, duchesses, shopkeepers, lackeys and pick- 
pockets, philosophers and courtiers, all gambled without 
shame or scruple or intermission. A fortune was built up 
and dissipated in an hour. 

All these houses, now occupied by various modest in- 
dustries, were then, from cellar to attic, " laboratories for 
minting gold ". Shares of 500 livres rose to 18,000, even 
20,000! At either end of the Rue Quincampoix guards 
were stationed to regulate the carriage traffic and prevent 
the crowds crushing one another to death. At No. 90 

1 John Law (of Lauriston), the originator of Law's Bank and the 
Mississippi Scheme, was born in 1671, being the son of an Edinburgh 
goldsmith. After a turbulent youth, he fled to the Continent after a duel 
in which he had killed his antagonist. Finally settling in Paris he per- 
suaded the Regent to sanction his financial projects and the establishment 
of a Bank possessing the right to issue notes. His fundamental idea was 
that a plentiful supply of circulating medium stimulates trade,-sound 
enough m itself. But the plan was carried to excess, paper monev bein- 
issued in reckless quantity without any corresponding reserve of bullion" 
and inevitably led to panic and disaster. This was hastened on by the' 
combination with the Bank of the Mississippi Company (1719), a Wild- 
cat scheme for the development of the French possessions in Louisiana 
and finally precipitated by the Regent's turning against his former proteV 
Y^h.le the mania lasted, the wildest speculation ran riot; fortunes were 
made and unmade in a day, and scenes were witnessed in the Rue Quin- 
eamfoix, the headquarters of these transactions, comparable, though on a 
far larger scale, with those of the English " South-Sea Bubble » Law 
fled from Paris on the collapse of his projects, and eventually died in 
poverty at Venice. [Transl.] 
15 







B 
u 

— 
J 

f. 



SAINT-MERRI AND NEIGHBOURHOOD 22; 

the Watch rang a bell every night when the hour struck 
for clearing the street ! 

C'etait la Regence alors 

Et, sans hyperbole, 
Pour ies plus droles de corps 

La France etait folle ; 
Tous les hommes plaisantaient 
Et les femmes se pretaient . . 

A la gaudriole au gu<§, 

A la gaudriole. 1 

To go on at the game, to go on gambling like every- 
body else, money must be had at any price. Highway 
robbery became rife, murders, thefts, suicides everyday 
occurrences . . . in one batch twenty-seven bodies of 
persons who had perished by violence at their own hands 
or those of others were landed by the drag-nets at Saint- 
Cloud. Then came the crash, with panic and utter ruin 
in its train ; Law flies the country, to die at Venice in 
poverty and disgrace, and Canillac, one of the Regent's 
roues, sums up the whole mad scheme in a sentence • 
' Why, it's all as old as the hills ; M. Law's discovery was 
nothing new,— long before his day I gave bills and didn't 
pay 'em . . . and that's the whole system in a nutshell ! " 
The famous Banker's house stood in the Rue Quincampoix 
just where nowadays the omnibuses running along the 
Rue de Rambuteau cross the street at right angles. 2 

1 Beranger, La Gaudriole, p. 13. " CEuvres completes - 

("It was the Regency then, and, without exaggeration, in the 

strangest maddest way all France was frantic ; all the men were free and 

gay and all the women kind. . . .') 

2The ^dmg was furnished with immensely massive iron bars, and 
three carved heads sculptured in relief within medallions adorned the string- 
course of the first floor. One of these heads was crowned with reeds and 
represented a river-god ; the second was a female head, the third a satyr's 
garlanded w,th vine-leaves and bunches of grapes. Law's Bank, founded 



228 WALKS IN PARIS 

Several fine old mansions, now occupied by dealers in 
" medical specialities " and " fancy confectioneries," by 
cheese stores, infant schools, mirror-burnishers, soda-water 
manufacturers, flash jewellers, bear witness by occasional 
vestiges of artistic ornament to the sumptuous past of this 
now shabby street, the end houses of which frame a dis- 
tant perspective of the graceful and venerable Tom'- Saint- 
Jacques} Nos. 58, 28, 14, 15 and above all No. 10 can 
still show some remains of wrought-iron work, dilapidated 
balconies, mutilated stone masks, pediments, carved bands 
of foliage, recesses still showing traces of rich sculpture, 
and elaborately worked balustrades. . . . But everything 
is falling to decay, perishing with time and weather, 
dropping into dust. Indeed a strong effort of the imagina- 
tion is needed to revive the memory of all the wild, frantic 
hopes, all the unbridled extravagances, once witnessed by 

originally (in a portion of the Palais Mazarin in the Rue Vivicnne) with 
a capital of six million francs, — divided into 1,200 shares of 6,000 livres each, 
was privileged by Government to discount bills to bearer. Law, — a Scotch- 
man and financier, born at Edinburgh, and then Controller General of the 
Finances in France, — established simultaneously a " Company of the West 
Indies'' with the object of exploiting Louisiana and the Mississippi. . . . 
Following on a decree of 5th March, 1720, amalgamating the Bank and 
Company of the Indies, a crash (comparable to that of the Union Generate 
in 1882) was precipitated, and the shares fell from 9,000 livres to 600. 
Law was utterly discredited and fled to Brussels. The total face value 
of the paper issued was over three milliards (3,000 millions, £120,000,000), 
at a period when the figure of the Bank of France did not reach as much 
as 760 millions (£30,400,000). — Gustave Pessard, Nouveau Dictionnairc 
Jiistorique de Paris. 

1 The handsome Tour-Saint-Jacques, which now stands isolated in 
an enclosed garden at the corner of the Rue de Rivoli and the Boulevard 
de Strasbourg, was originally part of the old Church of Saint-Jacques de 
le Boucherie, destroyed at the Revolution, 1789. Pascal is said to have 
conducted experiments on the pressure of the atmosphere from its summit, 
and a statue of the Philosopher below the Tower commemorates the cir- 
cumstance. [Transl.] 



SAINT-MERR] AND NKIGHBOURHOOI) 



229 



this sad, silent, thoroughfare, now filled by the acrid fusty- 
odour of druggists' wares, and the heavy smell of fried 




Tour Saint-Jacques 

potatoes that is wafted from the goodwife's stall at the 
corner, where it is wedged into the angle of an ancient 
porch surmounted by the scutcheon of a noble house. 



THE RUE DE LA FERRONNERIE 

THE MARCHE DES INNOCENTS— THE " CAVEAU " 

IN the month of April, 1610, a vague and terrifying 
rumour ran through Paris . " The Slayer of the King 
is in the city ! " Some could even describe him : " a 
strapping fellow, of a good tall figure, powerfully built 
with sturdy limbs ; his hair was of a darkish red, and he 
was dressed in green." His name was Ravaillac. 

On Friday, 14th May, the Due de Vendome came to 
see the King his father to warn him that an astrologer, 
La Brosse, had foretold that the day would prove fatal to 
him ; 1 Henri pretended to make light of the matter, but 
he was so troubled by the prophecy that he could neither 
work nor sleep. At four o'clock the King ordered an 
open coach, because of the heat ; he took his place, ac- 
companied by the Due d'Epernon, MM. de Montbazon 
and De la Force, the Marechal de Laverdin, and M. de 
Crequi, and the coachman was told to drive to the Arsenal 
to enquire after the health of Sully, who was very ill. 
Paris was all quivering at the time with religious excite- 
ment ; despite his gallantry, his adroitness and his happy 
good humour, despite his divorce from the Queen Margot 
and his marriage with Marie de Medicis, a niece of the 

1 " La Brosse," answered the King, " is a cunning old knave who 
wants to get hold of your money, and you are a young fool to believe 
him. Our days are counted before God " (Les Causes Celebres. " Proces 
de Ravaillac." 

230 



THE RUE DE LA FERRONNERIE 231 

Pope's, " who brought him neither heart nor wit nor beauty, 
but the biggest dowry of the day," Henri IV. had not 
succeeded in disarming the hostility of the " Catholiques a 
gros grains? the ingrained Catholics,— as P. de l'Estoile 
calls the irreconcilable adherents of the Ligue, — and was 
still accounted an " enemy of the true Religion ". The 
most firmly convinced fanatic of them all was " the slayer 
of the King "—a madman and a mystic, his bosom covered 
with amulets, a visionary haunted by dreams of blood. 
For nearly three weeks Ravaillac kept prowling round 
the Louvre. He had found it difficult to procure a lodging 
in the city, which was crowded with strangers attracted 
to the fetes in connexion with the coronation of Marie 
de Media's. He had been refused accommodation, for 
want of room, at the Cinq-Croissants, an inn situated near 
the Quince- Vingts— facing the Comedie-Francaise of the 
present day. As he was leaving the place, his eyes had 
been fixed in a sort of hypnotic trance on " a large, sharp- 
pointed knife, shaped like a bayonet and with a handle of 
stag's horn V " Deeming it a fit instrument to kill the 
King with," he appropriated it, 2 and going on his way 

1 Letter from Malherbe to Peiresc. 

2 "From the table he took up a knife, not because of being refused 
admission, but as deeming the knife a fitting instrument to carry out his. 
purpose, and kept it for a fortnight or three weeks in a bag in his pocket. 
Having abandoned his purpose, he took the road to return home, and got 
as far as Etampes. On the way there he broke off the point of the knife 
for about an inch against a cart in front of the garden at Chanteloup. 
But as he stood before the Ecce Homo in the outskirts of Etampes, his 
purpose came back to him to execute his design of killing the King. He 
did not resist the temptation as before and returned to Paris with this fixed 
resolution, because the King made no endeavour to convert those of the 
so-called Reformed religion, and it was said that he "intended to make 
war on the Pope and transfer the Holy See to Paris."— Examination of 
Ravaillac. 




u 

'33 

c3 
O 

>» 

o 






C 

o 

-J 

u 

c 

> 



C 



r-2 
x 



THE RUE DE LA FERRONNERIE 233 

plunged into the populous faubourg since replaced by the 
Rue Saint-Honori) and finally found a lodging at the 
Trois-Pigcons, a humble hostelry standing right opposite 
the entrance doors of the Church of Saint-Rock. 

From there he set out, on the morning of the 14th, 
his knife in his pocket, to return to his post of observa- 
tion in front of the Louvre. He followed the coach as 
far as the Rue de la Ferronnerie. A block occurred in 
this narrow street, which was always crowded with traffic, 
and which ran along the boundary wall of the Cemetery 
of the Holy Innocents. The valets de pied took a short 
cut by the Charnel-house of the Cemetery, meaning to 
wait for the King at the corner of the Rue Saint-Denis. 
Meantime the coach, pressed by two carts, had to draw 
in against the shop of the " Cceur couronne perce dune 
fleche " (crowned heart transfixed by an arrow). Suddenly 
Ravaillac sprang upon a stone post by the roadside, and 
stretching his arm over the coach wheel, "landed two 
knife thrusts in the King's side". Henri IV. gave a 
stifled cry . . . and fell back dead. . . . The tragedy was 
enacted opposite the house — rebuilt since then — now 
numbered 8 in the street. 1 Ravaillac was quartered in 
the Place de Greve after being tortured with red-hot 
pincers, " as was only right ". Moreover, a magistrate of 
an inventive turn, M. de Guesle, the King's Procureur, 
supplemented the pincers with such pleasing adjuncts as 
melted lead, boiling oil and pitch and a mixture of wax 
and sulphur. Finally the " sturdy scoundrel " was finished 

1 At the time the street was reconstructed, under Louis XIV., about 
i66g, " a Maltese cross, painted red," was traced on the house which 
replaced the "Crowned Heart". The mark, which could still be made 
out in 1880, has now disappeared under the official plaster and whitewash. 



234 WALKS IN PARIS 

off by the lackeys with swords ; the bleeding fragments of 
his body were shared among the spectators, and " the 
meat" was roasted at every street corner. From the 
windows of the Louvre, the Queen could see the Swiss 
Guard cooking a joint underneath her balcony ! " There 
was no good mother's son," L'Estoile declares, " but was 
fain to have his bit." 

The Cemetery, near which the crime was committed, 
was at that time the most important in Paris. On its 
site now stands the Square des Innocents and the block 
of houses extending as far as the Rue de la Lingeiie. 

This large space of ground was a sort of "Campo 
Santo," a privileged locality. Corrozet certifies that " the 
ground there has such putrefactive qualities that a human 
body is consumed away in nine days ". For six centuries, 
more than half the population of Paris was buried there. 
For the rich, a monument was erected in the open air 
or inside the charnel-houses built against the walls of 
the Graveyard, on the inside. For the poor, the bodies 
were taken down a ladder into vaults excavated to a 
depth of fifteen or eighteen feet ; these common graves 
held as many as 1500 corpses. Access was obtained to 
them by wells planked over ; two or three of these were 
always open. The excellent La Fontaine was buried 
there on 14th April, 1695. It was not till 1780 that 
burials were discontinued, on account of the mephitic 
odour given off by all this poisoned soil, which was a 
growing danger to the public health. The graved igger 
Poutrain, a celebrated tosspot, claimed 90,000 burials in 
less than thirty years ! The Cemetery was emptied and 
the charnel-houses destroyed. 



THE RUE DE LA FERRONNERIE 235 

But by the eighteenth century the Rue de la Ferron- 
nerie had lost all trace of tragic associations. No longer, 
as of old, would you meet in it the grim " Bellman of the 




v 



bx 






Dead," in his flapping black felt and long black gown 
painted over with death's-heads and cross-bones. He 
dangled an enormous hand-bell and cried out in a 
sepulchral voice that echoed in the dark :— 

Reveillez-vous, gens qui dormez ! 
Priez Dieu pour les trepasses ! 



2^6 



WALKS IN PARIS 



Milliners, seamstresses, fancy dealers and fashion 
mongers of all sorts, had made it their chosen domicile. 
Mile. Morphise, " a caprice of Louis XV.," was an ap- 
prentice there, and the future Mme. Dubarry. who then 
bore the unassuming name of Jeanne Vaubernier, carried 
home her customers' parcels for Mme. Labille. In the 




The old Bureau des Lingeres, Rue Courtalon (now demolished), tormer 

Entrance Gateway 

Rue Courtalon, within a few yards of the Innocents^ was 
situated the " Bureau des Lingeres" the elegant doorway 
of which still survives, having been re-erected as a relic 
in the Square a few steps from the famous Fontaine des 
Innocents. This is adorned with Jean Goujon's delight- 



THE RUE DE LA FERRONNERIE 23; 

ful bas-reliefs, once the decorative panels of a sort of loggia, 
or open gallery at the corner of the Innocents and the Rue 
Saint-Dent's, nearly opposite the Restaurant Baratte of 
the present day. Originally there were only six of these 
panels. It was Pajou who executed those for the fourth 
face, when it was decided to make a Fountain out of the 
arcades of the loggia, which were taken down and removed 
stone by stone. This Fountain became, at the period of 
the Revolution, the centre of a very important market, 
protected from the weather by hundreds of red umbrellas ; 
it is still a charming monument, in spite of all the restora- 
tions and cleansings and scrapings it has had to undergo 
at the hands of the powers that be ! 

The CJiamiers (Charnel-houses) were transformed into 
shops, some even existing to the present moment. At 
No. 7 in the Rue ties Innocents a stable used for housing 
handcarts shows the vaulting arches of an earlier day still 
intact. 1 

Under Louis XV. the highly picturesque Corporation 
of Scriveners and Public Writers had their pitches along- 
side the row of pillars at this spot. Common folk were 
then profoundly ignorant ; menservants and maidservants 
and other members of the vast illiterate class resorted 
therefore to these ingenious scribes to do their correspond- 
ence for them. Prices varied according to the style em- 
ployed. . . . " If it is in the grand style, the letter is 
charged 10, 12 or 20 sols ; the meaner style costs 5 or 6 
sols only." 



1 Same thing a little farther down the street, at a wine-shop, exhibiting 
the sign : A VEscargot d'or (The Golden Snail). 



238 WALKS IN PARIS 

Making our way along the Rue des Innocents t strewn 
with cabbage leaves, littered with baskets, hampers, and 
packing-cases, fragrant with the smell of oranges and 
lemons, pleasantly tempering the pungent odour of the 
countless cheeses stored in the adjoining market-sheds, 
we light at No. 15 on a signboard that reads strangely. 
u Au Caveau" (The Cellar) is the inscription, and truly it 
is one of the most curious of the " thieves'-kens " that lurk 
in the darkness of nocturnal Paris. An enterprising wine- 
shop-keeper has conceived the idea of turning into drinking 
dens the row of cells once occupied by the Monks. At 
the further end of the narrow entrance-way, almost com- 
pletely filled by an enormous tin counter, a staircase 
descends, — a staircase so extremely narrow and low you 
have to bend your back to get down at all. Once there, 
you find a succession of vaulted cellars, hardly over eight 
feet high and thirteen across. The walls, of bare stone, 
are scored over with thousands of inscriptions and drawings, 
curses, oaths and threats, the wretched outcasts who spend 
their night in these smoky dungeons, which are open from 
midnight to midday, making a point of recording their 
signatures and lucubrations on the dismal walls. You 
are shown, cut in the stone with a knife, the name of 
Pranzini, the notorious murderer. 

All the same I strongly suspect the obliging customers 
of scribbling the walls "just to please the casual visitor, 
you know". We went there ourselves the other evening. 
In our honour the pianist, a broken-down old fellow with 
filmy eyes, set his cracked instrument jingling, while 
Henri Braillet, a popular singer bearing some resemblance 
both to Coquelin nine and Frascuelo, extolled in succes- 
sion the delights of love and the glory of M. Fallieres, 



THE RUE DE LA FERRONNERIE 239 

whom he is pleased to call " my little Armand." l Then 
he finished up with a ballad in "argot? his strong voice 
ringing finely under the reverberating vaults of the old 
Monks of the Holy League, and the admiring audience 
joining lustily in the choruses. 

The company was made up of pallid, nervous-looking 
young bloods, with a bearing at once insolent and sus- 
picious. One of our party, A. Dusart, an Advocate of 
talent, had just secured for one of them an unexpected 
acquittal, and our friend's client was still briming over 
with surprise and gratitude. Some ladies of attractive 
looks and easy virtue condescended to share the cigarette 
of sympathy with us . . . and a lively conversation began. 
We had an opportunity of hearing how severely M. le 
President X. is criticised by these special customers of his. 
One of his colleagues on the other hand, it appears, is a 
" capital good sort," and it is felt an honour to be sentenced 
by him. As for the Councillor Z., everybody knows he has 
a vile temper, especially when he has been losing the night 
before at the gaming tables ..." and I know all about 
him, / do ; I was a club-waiter one time," a gentleman 
assures us, dressed in a tightly buttoned light overcoat 
with sham astrakhan trimming, but without visible linen. 

Then, in a friendly way and without a trace of shyness, 
each of our companions of the moment tells us his story 
of poverty and idleness and vice. The talk is of gaol, 
" doing time," and they show us a choice selection of cut- 
throat knives that are ready, it seems, at a touch from 
their amiable owners to plunge between the ribs of the 
likely swell. They exhibit for our benefit the mysterious 

1 " Viens ! tnon petit Armand ! " — Respectfully dedicated to President 
Fallieres. (Words by Will and Nola ; Music by A. Serge.) 



240 



WALKS IX PARIS 



art of using a revolver without so much as taking it out 
of the coat pocket where the "little barker" lies snug. 
Amazing some of their stories ; but somehow the fellows 
give us the impression of wilfully exaggerating their bru- 




Fontainc des Innocents 

tality. One or two, it must be allowed, have handsome, 
fine-cut features, that speak rather of vice than callous 
ferocity. . . . 

There is a sudden silence. ... A tall, thin lad, with 
brown moustaches and bright eager eyes, a red plush 



THE RUE DE LA FERRONNERIE 241 

handkerchief tied round his throat, has just come in. It 
is the ''Jockey," our neighbours tell us in an awed whisper, 
and the hush that greets his entrance proclaims the almost 
royal prestige attaching to the name. A girl with fair 
hair is with him. She too is a notorious personage ; in a 
duel that made a sensation, in the Rue de Bondy, she got 
rid, we are credibly informed, of two rivals. 

Yes, it is a strange company, sitting there drinking, 
smoking, singing loud and muttering low, and making 
ready to spend the night in these close, confined cellars, 
dimly lighted by a few flickering gas jets. " Halloa, the 
coppers ! " cries a handsome girl suddenly, and a couple 
of Police Agents in uniform, carrying revolvers in their 
cases of shiny leather, enter to take a look round these 
strange quarters where the " Apaches" the Hooligans, the 
gaol-birds, of a great city are herded together; the other 
frequenters of the place are a few bedizened street-walkers, 
who come mincing in to visit their " pals," — the devoted 
Manons of these unattractive Des Grieux ! It is two 
o'clock in the morning by this time, and we take leave of 
the odd society we have been hobnobbing with. 

Outside, the moon floods the Place des Innocents with 

silvery light. In the distance gleam hundreds of little 

moving lights. They are the lamps attached to the shafts 

of the market-carts converging from all directions on the 

Halles. The night is full of a dull, persistent rumble of 

traffic, only broken by the plaintive barking of a lost dog, 

and the echoes of the noisy choruses that still resound 

from the underground recesses of the " Caveau," where 

the incorrigible vagabonds and dangerous nightbirds who 

frequent its vaults await the dawn of another day of 

vicious idleness. 
16 



THE HALLES AND NEIGHBOURHOOD 

THE COUR DU HEAUME— THE RUE PIROUETTE— THE RUE 
DE LA GRANDE-TRUANDERIE— THE ' ANGE-GABRIEL ' 

THE little winding, dark, narrow lanes that abut on 
the Halles Centrales have always been reckoned 
among the most picturesque in Paris, — and with good 
reason ; it is an old tradition, still largely true at the 
present day. Portions of streets still remain that give 
some vague idea of what they must once have been, — 
the Rue Mondetour, the Rue Pirouette, the Rues de la 
Grande and de la Petite-Truanderie for instance. There, 
as in the East, buying and selling was carried on, and 
bargains struck, on the doorsteps, the shop behind serving 
as a store-room ; hence the judicious regulations of Etienne 
Boileau forbidding traders " to hail a customer before he 
has left the neighbour's stall ". 

Half the population of Paris swarmed in these con- 
fined alleys, crowded all day long with purchasers, porters, 
dealers, housewives, loafers, light o' loves, cut-throats and 
scholars playing truant from the Sorbonne. Endless the 
discussions and confabulations ; a learned Doctor of the 
Faculties ambling by on his mule would be hooted, hours 
and hours would be spent in gossip, a merry-andrew 

would collect a gaping circle round him, a pickpocket 

242 



THE HALLES AND NEIGHBOURHOOD 24.^ 

would be caught in the act, a couple of women would fall 
to quarrelling. There, at the far end of the Rue Pirouette^ 
just where the Rue de Rambuteau now crosses it, exactly 
opposite the quarter of the Holies devoted to the sale of 
fish, rose the pillory. " It was a little eight-sided tower, 
pierced with tall Gothic windows. There was but one 
storey above the ground-floor, in the midst of which was 
an iron wheel pierced with holes through which were 
thrust the head and hands of the criminals, — thieves, 
murderers, blasphemers, libertines, condemned to this 
ignominious exposure. They were fastened there for 
three market-days running, for two hours a day." 1 In 
order that everybody might duly enjoy the edifying sight 
every half hour the pillory was turned so as to face in a 
different direction ; the victims were made to perform a 
pirouette^ — -whence the name of the street. 

The Tower of the Pillory counted, as it quite de- 
served to do, among the sights of Paris. Originally it 
was also the scene of executions ; men were broken on 
the wheel there, and hanged, and beheaded. Thus with- 
out moving a step and keeping half an eye all the while 
on their baskets of prunes, their casks of honey, their 
boxes of spices or their capons from La Bresse, the 
worthy shopkeepers of the district had been able to see 
the decapitation of Olivier III. de Clisson in 1344, and 
Jacques d'Armagnac, Due de Nemours on 4th August, 
1477, to confine ourselves only to great and powerful 
noblemen. — After the end of the eighteenth century 
executions were discontinued at the spot ; and justice 
confined her operations to exposing in the pillory bank- 
rupts, sellers by false weight, thieves, and above all pro- 

1 E. Beaurepaire, ha Chronique des Rues, p. 19. 



244 WALKS IN PARIS 

curesses, who were driven there, "seated astraddle and 
face to the tail on an ass ! " So delicate and facetious an 
amusement never failed to attract the crowd, and this 
nest of little streets was like an ant-hill. They were 
famous and the scene of much hard drinking. Assigna- 
tions were frequently given at the " Putts ct Amour" (Well 
of Love), situated at the crossing of the Grande and 
Petite Truanderie. It owed its imposing name partly no 
doubt to the excellence of its water, but the morality, — 
or shall we say immorality, — of the "merry maidens" of 
the quarter who resorted thither to draw water, was not 
without its effect also, say the ill-natured chroniclers of 
the day. 



The Cour du Heaume still remains unaltered at No. 5 
Rue Pirouette, and provides a striking picture of what these 
old houses once were. Traversing a low vaulted passage- 
way, half blocked with baskets, empty hampers and 
ladders, the flags littered with withered fern-fronds and 
cabbage leaves, we reach a vast courtyard surrounded by 
open galleries with wooden pillars on the ground-floor, but 
closed in above with dusty glass. In the fourteenth cen- 
tury it was a sumptuous mansion ; to-day it is nothing 
more than a space where street hawkers find stabling for 
hand-barrows, which point their shafts, polished by much 
handling, at fine old panelled ceilings. Another portion 
of the building is occupied by a fish-dealer, who will sell 
you any day as many splendid great lobsters, raw or 
boiled at choice, as ever you wish, to say nothing of fat 
Burgundy snails by the hundred bushel. 

The ground is sticky with filth, sodden with trampled 



THE HALLES AND NEIGHBOURHOOD 245 

snail-shells and lobster-shells. You slip on bits of stale 
fish or wisps of packing straw ; but what rich tones of 
colour, what depths of russet and orange, the old walls 
have to show, steeped as they have been for hundreds of 
years in the fumes of all the rich odorous victuals that 
have passed to and fro within their confined limits! 
Housewives, fishwomen, innkeepers, well-to-do restaura- 
teurs, with heavy gold watch-chains dangling across 



- 




Cour du Heaumc 

their stomachs, lounge in and out, buying and bargaining ; 
hampers crammed with trussed lobsters and countless 
dozens of snails, all ready dressed with butter and parsley, 
are carried by through the throng of cooks pressing round 
the long blue-painted table at the back where the goods 
are sold. It is quite one of the most amusing corners of 
this amusing quarter of the town. 



THE HALLES AND NEIGHBOURHOOD 247 

Carefully edging round perilous black holes that give 
access to divers cellars, we finally come out into the Rue 
dc la Grande Truanderie. It is a street of many drink- 
ing shops supplying fragrant absinthes and many-coloured 
aperitifs to showily dressed dealers who have come to fix 
up some keenly contested bargain over the zinc counter. 
Close by in the roadway, round improvised stalls, are 
groups of tired-looking porters, kitchen-gardeners, market 
labourers, women with aprons tucked up and bare arms. 
Hurriedly, without sitting down and without exchanging a 
word, they gulp down a bowl of hot soup or a glass of 
white wine. The pavement disappears under the accumu- 
lations of vegetable refuse, and the air is full of the smell 
of celery. A brisk open-air trade is done in hot coffee and 
roast potatoes and roughly made sandwiches, while from 
behind doors comes a noble sputtering of sausages fiying 
in the pan. Every one is in a hurry, eager to get their 
bargains settled and done with. 

" Cabbage heads — how much apiece ? " 
" Fifteen sous." 
" I'll give ten." 
" Come, make it the dozen." 
" No, ten, I say." 

"All right, come on, clear out the hamper, old jade! " 
Then the saleswoman empties her wares into sacks, 
humming over a waltz tune to herself. The bars are 
crammed, the doorways heaped high with baskets and 
bundles of vegetables. Outside a crowd is gathered 
round a photographer perched on a ladder, who "does 
groups," — to-day it is the strawberry-girls' turn. It is a 
thrilling moment ; in angular poses, with unwinking eyes, 
holding in their hands, as if offering up a sacrifice, pretty 



248 WALKS IN PARIS 

baskets full of ripe, red strawberries, the victims gaze 
with respectful awe at the artist's uplifted finger telling 
them to " keep quite still now." Market porters, carrying 
hampers of the fruit, stand as stiff as so many tree-trunks. 
Not a soul dares so much as smile, — except one pretty, 
fair-haired girl, a pink carnation between her saucy lips, 
who will not stay quiet . . . she does not mean to be a 
strawberry girl all her life, you may be very sure! . . . 

In 1797 this populous quarter was the scene of a 
sensational arrest. On 10th May the capture was effected 
at eleven o'clock in the morning of the Citoyen Gracchus 
Babeuf, who had been in hiding "in the Rue de la Truan- 
dei'ie, at No. 21, the house at the corner of the Rue 
Verderet, next to a small cafe the front of which is 
painted red, at a tailor's by name Tissot ". 

The Police of the Directory had long been on the 
look out for Babeuf, accused of conspiracy against the 
security of the State. Convinced of the crying need of 
reform in an ill-regulated condition of things, an ardent 
advocate of the terrorist doctrines, straightforward but 
hot-headed, Babeuf had gathered round him a group of 
feather-brained revolutionaries and was firmly bent on 
some day delivering a blow at the Government. His 
retreat was well chosen amid this labyrinth of lanes and 
alleys affording a score of different avenues of escape. 
But a certain Grigel having denounced the plot and 
betrayed the secret of Babeuf's hiding-place, the Direc- 
tory had ordered Dossonville, — Inspector-General of 
Police, — to lay hands on the terrible conspirator, while 
the Citoyen President Carnot had been at the pains to 



THE HALLES AND NEIGHBOURHOOD 249 

trace with his own hand in red chalk the plan of the 
locality where the arrest was to take place. 

After surmounting a thousand obstacles, Dossonville 
finally secured an entrance to the modest lodging, where 
Babeuf, in company with Buonarroti, an old ally of 
Robespierre, and Pelle, his secretary, was inditing the 
final manifestos to "put the conspiracy in trim." Sud- 
denly laid by the heels, Babeuf exclaimed : — 

"It is all over, tyranny is too much for us!" and 
watched the Police with scornful eyes as they searched 
the premises. Dossonville declares in his official report 
that he seized "proclamations headed, in letters as long 
and thick as a man's finger, the words, — ' Constitution of 
93, or Death,' orders to distribute powder to the assassins 
whose business it was to slaughter the Members of the 
Directory and the two Councils, to pillage all the shops,' " 
and so on and so on. The better to remove Babeuf and 
his accomplices without interference, Dossonville had 
artfully let it be supposed that he was dealing with ordin- 
ary law-breakers, and his report ends thus : " Everything 
went off without the smallest disturbance, and I noticed 
that the news we had put about was not without effect, 
for the neighbours all shouted, — ' Bravo ! don't let the 
thieves and murderers escape ! ' Babeuf was the only 
person who seemed surprised to find himself greeted with 
cries of 'Thief, thief'." 1 

1 The learned M. Leonce Grasilier has published in the Nouvelle 
Revue Retrospective (ioth June, 1901), a very curious report drawn from 
the private papers of the then Inspector-General — Jean-Baptiste Dosson- 
ville, a retired coffee-house keeper who became one of the most active 
Police Agents. We owe our best thanks to M. L. Grasilier, who has 
kindly allowed us to use this precious and picturesque document. 

" Report of the Inspector-General Dossonville, 21 Floreal,year IV. of 
the Republic, One and Indivisible. 



250 WALKS IN PARIS 

Some months subsequently, in the course of the same 

11 I received directions on the 21st of the current month, to put into 
execution an order of arrest of the Executive Directory, bearing date the 
igth, and authorising the arrest of Babeuf. 

" The execution of these commands was of such paramount importance, 
and the Executive Directory itself regarded the matter as being so intim- 
ately connected with the primary interests of the Republic, that the 
Citoyen Carnot, its President, had drawn out and traced the plan of the 
locality where the insolent conspirator Babeuf was coolly calculating the 
overthrow of the Constitution, organising assassination and pillage, and 
meditating the ruin of his country. 

" It was therefore in accordance with the plan of the place that con- 
cealed Babeuf from all eyes he desired to avoid, that I ranged my batteries 
so that he should not escape me. 

" It was now nine o'clock in the morning. 

" After carefully reconnoitring the house in question, situated in the 
Rue de la Grande-Truanderie, No. 21, at the corner of the Rue Verderet, 
I consulted with the Citoyen Jolly, Adjutant-General of the Section du 
Mail, and we agreed that, directly I should have made an entry into the 
house, he was so to dispose a picket of cavalry then at the Pointe Eus- 
tache, as to cut off all possibility of escape, — to wit at both ends of the 
Rue Verderet he was to place two troopers with orders to let no one pass. 
This precaution was to guard against the chance of Babeut's lodgings 
having two exits. Meantime the main body of the picket was to blockade 
the main entrance door of the house, to prevent any one coming near or 
leaving the place. 

"The district where these duties had to be carried out being near the 
Halles, and consequently thickly populated, and making sure the prepara- 
tion it necessitated would attract a great crowd, I thought it wise to spread 
about a report to the effect that it was a gang of thieves and murderers 
to be arrested. I arranged this with the Citoyen Jolly, and then set off 
to find some constituted authority to accompany me. 

" I visited the house of the Citoyen Baron, jfuge de Paix of the Sect- 
tion ; but he was from home. Thence I betook myself to Rue Neuve. 
Eustache to find the Citoyen Lefrancois, jfuge de Paix of the Section 
Brutus, and asked him if he would go with me on a duty I was charged 
with by the Minister of General Police, in virtue of an order from the 
Directory. He told me roundly he would rather give in his resignation 
than have a hand in any such affair. On receiving this answer I pro- 
ceeded to find the jfuge de Paix of the Section Contrat Social; but he was 
sick. 

" Time was slipping by, and I was getting more and more impatient. 
Finally I decided to go and find the Juge de Paix of the Section Bon- 



THE HALLES AND NEIGHBOURHOOD 251 

year, 1797, Babeuf, whose escape Drouet — no other than 

Conseil, in the arrondissement of which the Rue dc la Grande-Truanderie 
lies. But he was worse than any of them ; on my proposing that he 
should accompany me to execute an order of the Directory, he asked me 
what the order was. I had the paper in my hand, but on reflexion, I 
asked him point-blank if he meant to come with me. He said no. There- 
upon I put the order back in my pocket, and informed him I should be 
obliged to report his refusal. He answered I should do well to do so, 
and that I was at liberty to say he had altogether declined to accompany 
me. 

" I was therefore obliged to withdraw and try elsewhere. I thought of 
the constituted authorities of the Section de Bonnc-Nouvelle, the nearest 
to the Section de Bon-Conscil ; but as the principles of the Juge de Paix 
of this Section are perfectly well known to me, I thought it would be 
more judicious not to think of him. 

" I could not tell where to apply to. The fear of missing my blow, the 
time that was slipping away, everything redoubled my impatience. 
Eventually the Citoyen Jolly, who thought as I did, suggested to me the 
Citoyen Rene, Commissary of Police of the Section de Brutus ; he spoke 
ol him as a very likely man to second me, but he did not know where he 
lived. 

" I resolved therefore to return to the Juge dc Paix of that Section to 
inquire the address of the Commissary of Police. Luckily enough I found 
him at the Juge de Paix's house. I begged him to leave the room with me 
for a moment ; then I asked him to accompany me in the execution of 
my duty, and I must do this public functionary the justice to say that he 
did not even give me time to say another word. He started off in my 
company with a zeal and devotion above all praise. It was then eleven 
o'clock. 

" We set out therefore, the Commissary of Police, some other ci toy ens 
who were with me, and myself, for Babeuf's lair. The Citoyen Jolly 
returned to the cavalry picket, to post the men as we had arranged be- 
tween us ; but fearing the clatter of the horses' hoofs might put Babeuf 
on the alert, I thought it was wiser to occupy the room where Babeuf was 
hidden, and meantime the cavalry could advance and make its dispositions. 
" Then we entered the house. I placed two of the citoycns who ac- 
companied me half way up the stairs. The Commissary of Police, two 
other citoycns and myself, mounted to the third storey. I rang at the 
door of a set of rooms occupied by the Citoyen Tissot, who was the 
individual mentioned as giving shelter to Babeuf. The Citoyenne 
Tissot opened the door to us. The Commissary followed me in, as well 
as the two citoycns. I asked the Citoyenne Tissot if her husband was in. 
On her replying he was not, I made as if to go on into the kitchen ; but 



252 WALKS IN PARIS 

Postmaster Drouet of Varennes fame ! — had vainly tried 

I turned suddenly instead and slipped down a short passage which led me 
to a little room on the left, the door of which I opened so opportunely that 
I was close upon Babeuf and the men who were with him before they 
had, so to speak, so much as seen me. 

" Babeuf was at his working table getting out his 44th Number. 
There were with him Buonarroti and Pelle, Heron's secretary. I notified 
the order of which I was bearer, and instantly gave directions to the two 
citoyens, who during this short interval, had also arrived in the room, to 
watch the windows and guard against any attempt at escape the gentlemen 
might make. 

" At this crisis the most abject consternation was depicted on the three 
men's faces. They saw the game was up, so to speak, and although they 
had firearms loaded to the muzzle and swords all about them, and though 
in the first instance I had appeared quite alone, they did not make the 
smallest movement to defend themselves. Babeuf rose and stood in front 
of his table, Buonarroti was busy hiding under him a paper he gave up 
again a moment later, while Pelle pointed out to me that he was not 
included in the order. I told him he must argue it out with the Minister 
of General Police. 

" Babeuf, as he got up from his chair, exclaimed : ' It is all over, 
tyranny is too much for us ! ' 

" Then, a moment later, he asked iae why ' I obeyed masters '. I told 
him I obeyed a Government for which the People had frankly and freely 
pronounced, and without wasting more time in useless talk, I went on 
with my duties. 

" I collected such papers as appeared to me best fitted to confirm the 
truth of this vast and odious conspiracy. During the short space of time 
I could give to examining them, I noticed especially proclamations headed, 
in letters as long and thick as a man's finger, with the words, — ' Con- 
stitution of 93, or Death,' orders to distribute powder to the assassins and 
brigands whose business it was to slaughter the ' Executive Directory 
and the two Councils,' the ' Staff of the Garde Parisienne and the Con- 
stituted Authorities,' to pillage all the shops and stores, besides placards 
inscribed, ' All who insult the sovereignty of the People merit Death ! ' 
and a seal with the legend ' Salut Public '. All these papers were enclosed 
in a box and conveyed along with the prisoners to the Ministry of General 
Police. 

" For the rest of the boxes and papers, of which there are a great many 
still left in the room, seals have been affixed, to guard which I have set 
two men, chosen from among the cavalry men who aided me in carrying 
out my duties, this provisionally and until other orders are received. 



THE HALLES AND NEIGHBOURHOOD 253 

to effect from the Prison of the Temple} was executed at 
Vendome. The house itself, Xo. 21 of the Rue de la 
Truanderie, has disappeared, demolished in the cutting 
of the new streets which have let a little light and air 
into these wretched alleys. It stood where the Rue de 
Turbigo now runs, a few yards from the Restaurant 
Pharamond, — the favourite rendezvous of cider drinkers 
and epicures in tripe and calves' head. 

Directly night falls, this industrious quarter changes 
character completely, and the dregs of the population 
come pouring in. By day it is picturesque and pleasantly 
suggestive of bygone days, after dark it is dangerous and 

" These arrangements completed, the prisoners were placed each in a 
hackney-coach and conveyed, under good and trusty escort of cavalry, 
to the Ministry of General Police. 

" The Citoyen Jolly, above mentioned, carried out to perfection the 
business he was intrusted with, in connexion with the posting of the 
military contingent. The crowd was prodigious, but everything went off 
without the smallest disturbance, and I noticed that the news we had put 
about that they were common robbers and murderers had not been with- 
out its effect, for the neighbours all shouted, — ' Bravo ! don't let the thieves 
and murderers escape ! ' 

" Babeuf was the only person who seemed surprised to find himself 
greeted with cries of ' Thief, thief! ' Perhaps he would not have been 
so astonished if they had confined themselves to crying ' Murderer ! ' — 
for, by what he proposed, he meant to have made thirty thousand heads 
fall. 

" DOSSONVILLE." 



1 Drouet was the postmaster at Varennes, who recognised Louis XVI. 
from his resemblance to his effigy on the coinage, when he and the Queen 
were on their flight to the frontier (June, 1791), and detained the 
party. This led to the discovery of the scheme, and the Royal family 
were conveyed back to Paris. See the graphic chapter on the subject 
in Carlyle's French Revolution ; also Dumas' La Route de Varennes. 
[Transl.] 



2 54 WALKS IN PARIS 

repulsive. Simultaneously with the lighting up of the 
clock-face of Saint-Eustache, a horde of loafers and night 
prowlers, tramps and " sturdy vagabonds." mingled with 
slatternly girls, their heads tied up in knotted hand- 
kerchiefs or wearing only their own thick, unkempt locks, 
black, red or flaxen, girls with swinging hips and im- 
pudent eyes, invades these little, dark lanes, where they 
seem to shirk away from the gas-lights. The low liquor- 
shops fill up, and the high jinks begin. 

The older the night, the more uproarious is the scene ; 
drinking, eating and singing are in full swing in a score of 
pothouses,— the "Belle de Nuit," the " Ckien qui fume," 
the " Caveau " (described above), and plenty more. But 
it is at the Ange-Gabriel, in the Rue Pirouette, that the 
fun is most fast and furious ; it is a notorious " ken," a sort 
of "Maxim's" of the "Apaches". Gaol-birds and their 
doxies come there to regale themselves on snail suppers 
and drain bumpers of mulled wine ; the great saloon on 
the first floor is full of " queer customers,"— heroes of 
knifing and blackmail, fellows with shifty, predatory eyes 
and thin, cruel lips, and white-faced girls with painted 
mouths. All, men and women, are smoking cigarettes 
and talking in whispers, their remarks punctuated with 
knowing winks and quick sidelong glances. A poor devil 
of a violinist, with a depressed air about him, is scraping 
out waltz tunes, to which his audience pay scant attention, 
though they deign now and then to take up the choruses 
in a desultory way. The landlord declares there are quite 
honest people among his customers ; well, it may be so, 
but they have the misfortune to rub shoulders at the Ange- 
Gabriel with very bad company,— that is all one can say. 
Yet we have supped there in our time, Detaille, 



THE HALLKS AND NEIGHBOURHOOD 2 



*DD 



Claretic, his son, and sundry other friends, amongst the 
number being Henri-Robert, the distinguished Advocate. 
His presence, which was noticed at once, produced indeed 
among the amiable frequenters of the place such a stirring 
of sympathy in our favour that we had all the difficulty 
in the world to escape accepting some highly compromis- 




Rue Pirouette, in 1875 

ing invitations. . . . Outside, meantime, in front of the 
Halles, under a lovely moonlit sky, the market-carts were 
coming in, in a slow but never-ceasing procession, and 
the pavements being heaped with great bunches of car- 
nations, jasmines and roses, that seemed to purify with 
their exquisite scent the atmosphere .of vice and crime 
we had just been breathing. 



THE RUE DES BONS-ENFANTS 

DESPITE its singularly engaging name, the Rue des 
Bons-Enfants is never very crowded. Running 
parallel with the Rue de Valois, where the Fine Arts are 
so much in evidence, it knows nothing of the pretty 
actresses, pride of the Conservatoire, whose smart, fascinat- 
ing figures throng the offices of the worthy Dujardin- 
Beaumetz, grand-master of the National and State-aided 
Theatres. It is, with few exceptions, only noisy packers, 
busy clerks, Police Agents, parcel-boys and booksellers' 
assistants, who frequent the Rue des Bons-Enfants. Now 
and then the happy accident of a block of traffic will bring 
that way a carriage load of elegantly dressed ladies going 
to shop at the Magasins du Louvre, but it is a chance 
not to be counted on, however much desired, by the pen- 
sive quill-drivers who spoil paper behind the windows of 
this dull, cross-grained street. 

The fact is, the Rue des Bons-Enfants, which previously 
to 1782 extended as far as the Palais-Royal, 1 is a victim 

1 The Palais- Royal has had a strangely chequered existence. Origin- 
ally built by Cardinal Richelieu during the years 1619-1636, and occupied 
by him till his death, it was bequeathed by him to the Crown. It then 
became the residence of the Queen-Regent, Anne of Austria (widow of 
Louis XIII.) and her two sons, Louis XIV. and Philippe d'Orl£ans, and 
the name became gradually changed (against the Queen's wishes) from 
Palais-Cardinal to Palais-Royal. Richelieu's apartments were occupied 
by his successor Cardinal Mazarin, the Queen's Minister and, so said 

256 



THE RUE DES BONS-ENFANTS 257 

of the Duke of Orleans' projects. When that Prince 
surrounded the great garden, where for so many years the 
Parisians had considered themselves at home, with build- 
ings which he proposed to let to tenants, the scandal was 
prodigious. The Duke was the butt of a thousand jests 
and sarcasms and scurrilous songs : — 

rumour, the Queens lover. Readers of Dumas will remember the open- 
ing scene of Twenty Years After, where Mazarin sits solitary, harassed and 
unpopular, in Richelieu's chair, before Richelieu's writing-table, while the 
murmurs of the Parisian populace are heard without. Louis XIV. gave 
the Palace to his brother, the Due d'Orleans, whose son, another Philippe 
d'Orleans (d. 1723) resided and ruled there as Regent, during the minority 
of Louis XV. There took place the famous suppers which gave rise to 
so much scandal, and which the Due de Saint-Simon describes for us. 
Then at the Revolutionary period the notorious Philippe-Egalite, who 
after casting in his lot with the King's enemies, was guillotined in 1793, 
a greater profligate and as great a spendthrift as his grandfather the 
Regent, enclosed the gardens of the Palais-Royal, which had for years 
been a favourite resort of the Parisians, with buildings and colonnades, 
much as thev exist to the present day, and let them out as shops, gam- 
ing-houses, theatres and cafes, as a means of raising revenue. The place 
soon became the centre of Parisian gaiety, and for years was the resort 
of all visitors to Paris in search of dissipation and amusement. Now it 
is becoming more and more deserted every day. It was in front of one 
of the cafes (the Cafe Foy), under the colonnade of the Palais-Royal, 
that Camille Desmoulins harangued the populace on 12th July, 1789, 
two days before the taking of the Bastille. On the restoration in 1815 
the Orleans family recovered possession of the Palais-Royal, and it was 
occupied by Louis-Philippe down to the end of 1830, the year of his 
accession as "citizen-King". At the Revolution of 1848 the mob com- 
pletely wrecked the Royal apartments. After being known as the Palais- 
Egalite and then again as the Palais- Royal, it became the Palais- 
National, only to resume once more its old name under Napoleon III., who 
assigned the South wing, facing the Louvre, as a residence for his uncle, 
Prince Jerome Napoleon (d. i860), once King of Westphalia. On 22nd 
May, i87i,the Communards set the Palais- Royal on fire, and a large part 
of the original building was destroyed. 

We must distinguish the Palace proper, covering the Southern por- 
tion of the whole space, from the buildings erected by Egalite' surround- 
ing the gardens. The former is now occupied by the Conseil d'Etat. 
[Transl.] 

17 



258 WALKS IN PARIS 

Le Prince des Gagne-Deniers, 
Abattant des arbres antiques, 
Nous reserve sous ses portiques, 
A travers de petits senders, 
L'air epure de ses boutiques 
Et l'ombrage de ses lauriers. 1 

The works went on all the same, and after the Opera, 
— then situated at the corner of the Rue Saint- Honore, 
on the ground occupied by the present Rue de Valois, — 
had been finally burnt to the ground on 8th June,. 1786, 
one evening when Gluck's Orphee was being played, a 
new street was constructed separating the Palais-Royal 
from the Rue des Bons-Enfants ; kitchen smells replaced 
the balsamic odours of the flowery pastures originally 
laid out by Cardinal Richelieu. It was the signal for a 
rapid degradation ; since that day the street has altered 
very little, and is one of the corners of Paris where the 
soul of the Past may most readily be evoked. 

The old street indeed recalls many memories and con- 
tains many curious buildings. Passing up it towards the 
Rue Saint-Honore, we first encounter, on our right, at 
No. 8, a broad vaulted passage, — the entrance of the 
Cloitre Saint-Honore] an old and noble Religious House 
pulled down in 1793, and now replaced by tall workmen's 
dwellings. A creamery brightens the right side of the 
passage-way ; on the opposite side-walk a wine-dealer has 
set out — well in the draught — four tables covered with 
table cloths of a bright red check. Up above swing a raw 
leg of mutton and a brace of plucked fowls, and behind the 

1 " The Prince of Skinflints, felling the fine old trees, reserves for us 
beneath his colonnades, across little meagre paths, the refined air of his 
shops to breathe and the shade of his laurels to sit under ! " 



THE RUK DES BONS-ENFANTS 



259 



glass are rows of pigeon-holes filled with clean napkins, 
while a polished metal counter reflects a brilliant array of 
bottles. It is all very bright and cheerful and a trifle 
old-fashioned ; everything smacks of the eighteenth cen- 
tury, and it would create little or no surprise to see some 
pretty cousin of Manon Lescaut walk in and take her 
place, in light skirts, her hair rolled in a topknot under a 
morning cap, to drink a glass of " Suresnes " with a gallant 




Cloitre Saint-Honor e 

Sergeant of the Guard. This little passage is curiously 
lighted ; the illumination comes from above, from a high 
semi-circular bay open to the sky, into which open the 
windows of the picturesque six-storeyed house. 

Opposite, at No. 7, between a coal-dealer and a tavern, 
is a black, dingy archway leading to the Passage Henri- 
I\ '., a dark and tortuous corridor. 

Two fried-fish shops poison it with their smoke and 
smell, and a locksmith fills it with the din of hammering. 



260 WALKS IN PARIS 

It appears that at an earlier date, about i860, it was a 
pleasant spot to visit ; an attractive perfumery business, 
presided over by attractive women, was established there, 
and drew a select clientele. . . . How the world changes, 
to be sure ! 

Close by, at No. 9, a noble-looking and imposing 
gateway opens upon the Cour des Fontaines ; surmounted 
by scutcheons and coats of arms, decorated by sculpture 
and carving, but now dusty and dirty, plastered with 
written advertisements, flanked by the withered remnants 
of mortuary wreaths, smeared with an aggressive bright- 
blue wash, it sums up in its profaned beauty the history 
of the Rue des Bons-Enfants, and many another Paris 
street, the erstwhile historic mansions of which are now 
divided up and turned to base uses, housing a score of 
humble industries and mean trades. Under the archway 
gleam, more bright and gay and fresh-looking than ever 
for the contrast with the old grey stonework, the pink 
and yellow and white of peonies, irises and marguerites ; 
a little further on a poulterer is plucking chickens at her 
stall, which displays salads and celery on top of wooden 
cages from which flap the ears of unhappy rabbits. Below 
an inlet stone tablet surrounded by a carved scroll of 
oak-leaves, can still be read in half-obliterated lettering : — 

Cabinet de lecture ; — Abonnement aux journaux du 
jour et de la veille. 

(" Reading-room ; — Subscriptions received for the day's 
papers, and also for yesterday's.'') 

Subscriptions for yesterday's papers ! . . . Hardly up 
to date, is it ? . . . 

At No. 19, a little further on, an imposing doorway is 



THE RUE DES BONS-ENFANTS 261 

seen, on the arched pediment of which is inscribed on a 
slab framed in scrolls of flowers, — "Hotel de la Chancel- 
lerie cfOrUans". Needless to say this inscription, so sug- 




Ruc des Bons-Enfants — Passage opening on the Cour des Fontaines 

gestive of former grandeur, is surrounded by a dozen 
notices and advertisements of all colours and sizes, showing 
how low the once noble mansion has descended nowadays 



262 WALKS IN PARIS 

in the social scale. We will enter the vaulted passage-way ; 
two statues stand in niches, one on either side, and below 
them are stone posts connected by iron chains, intended 
to afford visitors a protection against the coaches driving 
in and out. The oval courtyard is still picturesque and 
pleasing to the eye ; at the further side, raised a few steps 
above the pavement and relieved by pillars and porticos, 
stands a really beautiful building. The concierge pushes 
open the creaking door with some difficulty, and the visitor 
rubs his eyes in amazement. 

Stepping out of the courtyard where busy housewives 
are beating carpets, drawing water, shaking up salads in 
baskets of iron wire, we find ourselves in a suite of rooms 
of fairylike beauty, gilded like some Saint's reliquary, rich 
with scrollwork and carving, with beautifully wrought 
pediments above the doors, and wonderful painted ceilings 
by Coypel ! But alas ! it all reeks of decay and damp 
and neglect. The lovely building which till lately housed 
the Musce ties Arts dccoratifs has for some time been stand- 
ing vacant ; its only occupants are hordes of stray cats that 
scurry noisily through the deserted rooms. 

As we wander through the sumptuous apartments, echo- 
ing with emptiness, we call up a wealth of memories . . . 
the Regency, Law, Cardinal Dubois, and almost as real, 
the characters created by the genial Dumas, — the Chevalier 
d'Harmental and the Pere Buvat, the delightful, if hardly 
heroic, hero of the pretty, romantic story, 1 the scene of 
which is largely laid in the Rue des Bons-Enfants i the 
sloping roofs of which supply an airy pathway of escape 

1 The Chevalier d'Harmental, by Alexandre Dumas, with its con- 
tinuation The Regent's Daughter (Methuen's "Complete Dumas," trans- 
lated by Alfred Allinson). [Transl.] 



THE RUE DES BONS-ENFANTS 263 

to the Regent from the daggers of the Duchesse du Maine's 
conspirators! . . . He knew it well, this Rue des Bons- 
EnfantS) did the "great Alexandre," the diverting story- 
teller, who has charmed so many generations ! It was in 
fact in the Bureaux of the Duke of Orleans that in 1824, 
by the recommendation of General Foy, that he made his 
debut as a supernumerary writer. The office was lost in 
admiration at his marvellous dexterity in cutting out en- 
velopes and affixing the great seals of red wax bearing the 
Ducal arms ; Oudard, the Head of his Department, intro- 
duced him to the good graces of the Duke of Orleans with 
the words : " I beg Monseigneur to grant the title of Clerk 
to this young man who writes a very fine hand, and even 
has some little intelligence ! " 

While still thusengaged in sealing His Royal Highness's 
letters, Dumas was completing his literary training and 
writing his first dramas, — Christine a Fontainebleau and 
Henri I J J. ct sa Cour. The latter play indeed, being ac- 
cepted at the Thcatre-Francais, was very near costing its 
author his daily bread. Hearing that a humble clerk was 
daring to dabble in literature, the Duke cancelled with a 
stroke of the pen the presumptuous young fellow's extra 
pay, — and from that day forward the administrative big- 
wigs looked upon him with suspicion and dislike ; he was an 
Artist, that bugbear of every official mind ! He was soon 
reduced to choose between his post and his " stage-plays," 
and the unfortunate Dumas had to resign his 125 francs a 
month at the very time when his mother lay dying. The 
bureaucrats had won the day. But Dumas had his revenge, 
when (nth February, 1829), after the first night of Henri 
III., which was received with universal applause at the 
" Frangais," the Duke of Orleans, standing and bareheaded, 



264 



WALKS IN PARIS 



heard the name of his former employe triumphantly ac- 
claimed as the winner of an indubitable dramatic success. 
The same evening, on reaching home, Dumas found 
a letter from his old Chief, couched in terms of extrava- 
gant panegyric, and concluding,—' I feel sure your crowns 
of victory and the future of fame and fortune your genius 




Alexandre Dumas (pere) 

opens before you still leave you sensible to the claims of 
friendship, and believe me my feeling for you is of the 
kindest ". 

It was the same individual who had been chiefly in- 
strumental in stopping his salary ! 

Here are a few of the sufficient reasons which should 






THE RUE DES BONS I \l WIS 265 

induce every good Parisian to devote an afternoon's walk 
to the picturesque Rue des Bons-Enfants. I will add 
another ; he may very likely pick up at the Salic Silvcstrc, 
— the smoky Hotel Droitot (Old Curiosity Shop) of 
second-hand books, now installed at No. 28 — some fine 
bargains in the way of old volumes bound in Levant 
leather. Then the house itself is worth seeing ; Richelieu 
lived there once, and it was a poor teacher of Danish who 
having won it at one of the lotteries so much in vogue 
in the Revolution period, sold it to the bibliophile 
Silvestre. ... In very deed we may say, every stone 
of Paris has a history ! 



BOULEVARD BONNE-NOUVELLE 

THE RUE DE LA LUNE— THE RUE DE CLfiRY 

A LMOST every day, alas ! Paris mourns the disap- 
■^^ pearance of some relic of her wondrous history ; so 
it is our bounden duty to keep jealous guard over what 
few material vestiges remain of the scenes where stirring 
episodes of our National drama have been enacted. 
Amongst the richest in associations must be reckoned 
the congeries of old narrow streets of tall gloomy houses 
which slope down steeply towards the Porte Saint-Denis, 
ending on the top of the high stone escarpment which 
dominates the South side of the Boulevard Bo?me-A r oit- 
veile. The ground is now levelled ; but it was far from 
being so formerly, and the hill formed quite a stiff climb. 
It was indeed one of the most picturesque bits on the 
line of the boulevard. In 167 1 the City of Paris had 
built at this point a superb, monumental Gate, which is 
still there for us to admire, to celebrate the victories of 
Louis XIV. in Germany. The Parisians were fond of 
coming here on Sundays with wife and children to stroll 
in the broad undulating avenues, planted with fine trees 
and bordered on either side by drinking booths and 
dancing saloons, market gardeners and florists. Here 
the youngsters could run about in safety, as the traffic, 
what there was of it, made a detour to avoid the hill, 
at the top of which were such fine places for playing 

266 



BOULEVARD BONNE-NOUVELLE 267 

bowls under the low boundary walls of the Cimetihre 
Bonne-Nouvelle, exactly where the Theatre dn Gytnnase 
and the Restaurant Marguery now stand. It was only 
in 1832 that the Boulevard Bonne- Nouvelle was widened 
and levelled. 

This widening abolished the Rue Basse, which passed 
close by the Porte Saint-Denis, in front of the spot 
now occupied by a cinematograph show, and simul- 
taneously swept away a wigmaker's shop the sign of 
which was one of the curiosities of Paris. It represented 
the long-haired but unfortunate Absalom hanging by his 
locks from the bough of a tree while the ruthless Joab 
transfixed him with his lance ; underneath were inscribed 
the burlesque lines : — 

Ici contemplez la douleur 
D'Absalom pendu par la nuque ! 
II eut evite ce malhcur 
S'il avait porte perruque. 1 

( )n the opposite side of the Boulevard a score of mean 
trades are nowadays installed in the basements ol the old 
eighteenth-century houses which terminate the Rue Beau- 
regard and the Rue de la Lune. In the latter of these, 
under the Second Empire, a dilettante discovered the 
famous singer Marie Sasse — destined at a future day to 
create the title role of L Africaine at the Opera, — singing 
in a low "sing-song," the " Cafe Moka" in company with 
the great virtuoso Darcier. 

Tobacconists, bar-tenders, dealers in coral, ballad 
mongers, bakers of hot brioches, occupy the street, each 
fulfilling their own appointed tasks, dealing out their 

1 " Here contemplate the calamity of Absalom suspended by the 
head. He would have avoided this accident if he had worn a wig." 



268 



WALKS IN TAR IS 



wares, turning piano organs, yelling idiotic refrains, pour- 
ing out beer . . . then the street pursues its winding 
course, getting duller and duller as it proceeds, between 
two lines of tall old houses, black, decrepit and filthy ; yet 
some of them, with their barred windows and wrought- 




Rue de Clery and Rue Beauregard 

iron scrollwork, have managed to preserve a look of an- 
tiquity through all their degradation. At the top of the 
steep street, between two ponderous stone pillars, is the 
stern-looking doorway of the Church of Notre- Dame de 
Bonne-Nouvelle. The Rue de la Lune, the Rue Beaure- 
gard and the Rue de Clery, all converge downhill on the 



BOULEVARD BONNE-NOUVELLE 

Porte Saint-Denis, so closely wedged in together at last 
that you ask in amazement how anybody can possibly 
find room to live in the rooms which seem to come to a 
point at the salient angle on each storey. 




Corner of the Rue de CUvy (Lepere) 

Yet people do live there, and the landlord who serves 
out his half-pints at No. 97 in the Rue de Ctiry, — a narrow 



2 /0 WALKS IN PARIS 

house projecting like a promontory between the two streets 
at the extremity of which it stands,— is justified in 
writing upon his sign the words, « Au poke de gj; wines 
and spirits, furnished apartments " :— for there indeed lived 
Andre Chenier, before he went and got himself arrested 
at his friends the Pastorets' house. Once taken, his fate 
was sealed; Collot d'Herbois, Barrere and Billaud- 
Varenne were not the kind of people to spare the satirist 
who had so soundly whipped in his verse. 

Ces bourreaux, barbouilleurs de lois ! 1 

Yes, Andre Chenier inhabited this mean-looking house, 
where each floor finds room for only two tiny rooms ; he 
climbed this gloomy staircase, he leant out at this little 
window that frames so picturesquely the graceful and im- 
posing outline of the Porte Saint-Denis, which catches the 
light at the end of the steep streets. . . . Side by side 
with the official tablet recording the fact of Andre 
Chenier's residence, a poster shows us a cale waiter, with 
a broad smile and a napkin under his arm ; it is the ad- 
vertisement of an employes' registry —utilitarianism and 
poetry rubbing shoulders ! 

Looked at from the right-hand corner of the Porte 
Saint-Denis? these tall old houses, whose roofs and 

l " These butchers, botchers of laws." 

2 The Porte-Saint-Denis was erected in 1672 to commemorate the 
victories of Louis XIV. in Holland and on the Rhine. It is eighty-one feet 
in height, and was designed by Blondel. It stands between the Rue 
Saint-Denis and the Rue du Faubourg-Saint-Denis, where this line of 
streets, one of the most ancient and still one of the most important in 
Fans, is intersected by the Great Boulevards. 

The Porte Saint-Martin occupies a similar position, in relation to the 
Rue Saint-Martin and the Rue du Faubourg Saint-Martin, another old 
and important line of thoroughfare, though nowadays, as well as the Rue 
Saint-Denis line, relieved and partly superseded by the great Boulevard de 



BOULEVARD BONNE-NOUVELLk 271 

angles cut the sky so fantastically, present much the same 
aspect as on 21st January, 1793, when at daybreak the 
Parisians, too terrified to protest, were hurrying to the 
Boulevard to see the melancholy procession pass by that 
was conveying Louis XVI. from the Prison of the Temple 
to the Place de la Revolution, where the scaffold awaited 
him. By 387 votes the King had just been condemned 
to death, " sans conditions ni sursis" — " without conditions 
or delay ". 

At the Temple, Louis XVI., after sleeping soundly all 
night, woke about five o'clock. He then dressed, putting 
on white stockings, grey breeches, a white flannel waistcoat 
and a brown coat. After hearing mass on his knees, " on 
the bare ground, without Prie-Dieu or cushion," he stood 
a long time by the stove, finding it hard to get warm. 
After giving his final directions to his servant Clery, he 
left the Prison about eight o'clock by the orders of General 
Santerre, — " Sir, the hour is almost come, it is time to be 
starting". A heavy fog lay over the city, and the air 
was cold. After turning twice to gaze in the direction of the 
gloomy tower where he was leaving his wife and sisters, 
'■ Louis the Last" got into a carriage painted green. On 
his left sat his Confessor, while two gendarmes occupied 
the front seat ; the King's face was calm, as he read in a 
Breviary the Psalms of the Dying. 

The strictest orders had been issued by the Commune 
of Paris. Traffic was absolutely forbidden on the route 

Strasbourg, driven between the two by Baron Haussmann, and together 
with the Boulevard Saint-Michel on the left bank forming the main arterv 
of traffic from North to South. The Porte Saint-Martin was erected by 
the City of Paris in honour of Louis XIV., from designs by Pierre Ballet, 
in 1674, two years after the Porte Saint-Denis. [Transl.] 



272 WALKS IN PARIS 

followed by the funeral procession, and no one whatever 
was permitted to break the lines of troops which, four 
deep, guarded the way the whole length of the Boulevards 
standing motionless, " in a leaden silence ". The shops 
were half closed, and there was nobody at doors or 
windows. Where the more important streets joined the 
Boulevards, artillery men, " chosen from among the most 
patriotic," stood with threatening mien and lighted fuses 
beside their guns, which were loaded with grape ; behind 
them were massed reserves from the camp beyond the city 
bounds. 

As the coach advanced, a dull, confused murmur ran 
through the crowd, while in the distance could be heard 
the lugubrious rolling of the drums dulled by the moisture 
in the air; finally the escort appeared in terrible and 
ominous array through the mist. First came the Mar- 
seillais, then the National Gendarmerie on horseback, and 
finally two field batteries immediately preceding the 
carriage which rolled slowly forward, its closed windows 
tarnished with the fog and surrounded by a forest of pikes 
and bayonets. The cortege was moving steadily on when 
suddenly, opposite the Porte Saint-Denis facing the Rue de 
Clery, as it was climbing the hill of the Boulevard Bonne- ' 
Nouvelle, a momentary hesitation, a brief halt occurred ; 
there was shouting and pushing, figures disappearing into 
the fog, then men writhing on the ground, sabred where 
they stood, pools of blood on the roadway,— the whole 
thing over and finished in less than five minutes. 

What was it that had happened ? A few words will 
make this plain. On 20th January, the day immediately 
preceding that fixed for the King's execution, the Comite* 
de Salut public had received warning from the Comite* de 



BOULEVARD BONNE-NOUVELLE 273 

SAreU ge'ne'rale couched in these terms: " Citoyens^ the 
'Committee of General Security' has just been informed 
by a known individual that certain evil-disposed persons 
propose, to-morrow, when Louis leaves the Temple, to 
assassinate him in order to spare him the shame of mount- 
ing the scaffold. The Committee does not put much 
credence in so unreasonable a project ; nevertheless it 
deems itself called upon to give you warning, seeing that, 
under present circumstances, no precaution should be 
neglected." x 

The " known individual" who denounced the plot had 
fairly earned his money. There was a plot in serious 
earnest, and the man who was at the bottom of it was the 
most daring and skilful and determined of all the Royalist 
Conspirators ; it was the Baron de Batz, whose almost in- 
credible history has been written by a good friend of the 
author's, Lenotre. With an audacity that takes one's breath 
away, confronting a thousand dangers, defying cowards, 
traitors, police-agents, Committees and Sections, De Batz 
had arranged a supreme attempt, a forlorn hope, to save 
Louis XVI. on the very way to the scaffold, and with a 
sure eye he had singled out for the execution of his 
desperate scheme the precise spot of all others where the 
accidents of the ground would best second his plans. 

Guns, horses, the carriage itself, were bound to labour 
heavily when climbing the sharp slope of the Boulevard 
Bonne-N oiive lie, some slackening of pace and confusion 
would occur, and five hundred determined and well- 
armed men, hurling themselves en masse down the steep 

1 The original of this document is to be seen at the Musee Carnavaht 
in one of the cases in the Galerie de la Revolution (Case No. 61, Room 
XL). 

18 



BOULEVARD BONNE-NOUVELLE 275 

acclivities of the Ruede Clcry, the Rue de Beauregard and 

the A//,- flfe fc A//;/,-, would easily carryall obstacles before 
them, and breaking through the ranks of the National 
Guard, would save the King ! It was the supreme stroke, 
the last card. If promises were to be trusted, they had 
many tacit sympathisers. There would be a fight anyway, 
and the intrepid., De Rata counted on victory. The fog 
itself was another factor in his favour. 

Long before the hour fixed for assembling, the daring 
leader is at his post, at the corner of the AV de CUry 
and the Rue de Beauregard, anxious and alert, but sur- 
prised to see none of his confederates. He did not know 
one important fact— that the « known individual" had 
not onJy denounced the plot, but had likewise handed 
in a list of the conspirators, and that at the earliest 
streak of dawn two gendarmes had presented themselves 
at each man's dwelling and there remained On guard, pre- 
cluding all exit. De Batz counted on five hundred ac- 
complices, he found only twenty-five,— the :few who had 
not slept at home that night. Others again had failed 
to reach the place of rendezvous, the streets being barred 
and approaches watched. 

Nine o'clock strikes. The cortege is passing in front 
of the Porte Saint-Denis. Already the foremost files of 
the Cavalry and the guns have topped the hill ; in another 
instant the coach will be under the steep bank bordering 
the roadway on the left. It is the time and place chosen. 
A ringing shout strikes terror to all hearts,—'' Here, all 
who would save the King! " It is De Batz who raised 
the cry, waving his hat in one hand and holding his sword 
in the other. Two brave men are with him,Devaux his 
secretary, La Guiche his friend ; four other conspirators 



27b WALKS IN PARIS 

succeed in breaking through the lines of the National 
Guard, only to be cut down by the horsemen of the escort, 
De Batz alone disappearing as if by enchantment. . . . 
The few remaining confederates, who failed to penetrate 
into the roadway at all, are chased by the reserves along 
the little uphill winding streets into which they scurry 
for refuge. Some are bayoneted against the doors of 
the Church of Noti'e-Dame in the Rue de la Lune, where 
they had tried to find sanctuary. 

While the prisoners were being removed, and the 
frightened crowd was still gazing open-mouthed at the 
rapid and murderous affray, the cortege went on its fatal 
way. Already the tail of the procession, half lost in the 
mist, was entering between the tall trees of the Boulevard 
Poissonniere. Slowly but surely, in the cold and wet, the 
sound died away of the sodden drums beating dismally 
in front of the green coach in which the unhappy Mon- 
arch was still reading the Psalms of the Dying on his 
way to the scaffold. 



THE OLD BOULEVARD DU TEMPLE 

AND THE PLACE DE LA RE>UBLIQUE 

~\0 I remember the old Boulevard du Temple? 
U Why, of course I do . . . and with what feel- 
ings of pleasurable regret! I lived there five years, 

from 1856 to 1 86 1, when I won my ' prix de Rome' 
... Ah! what dreams, what beautiful boyish dreams, 
I have enjoyed there, to be sure ! " 

Massenet, the beloved and admired master, who tells 
us with an emotion that communicates itself to his aud- 
ience of his youth, so poor and hardworking, and so merry 
into the bargain. With keen and fascinated attention we 
listen as the great composer recalls with wit and geniality 
these early days of which he keeps so fond a memory. 

" I was fifteen ; I was a pupil at the Conservatoire, 
and in the evening, to make the needful bread and butter, 
played the kettle-drums in the orchestra at the Thedtre- 
Lyrique, — the peristyle of which occupied the spot where 
the entrance of the Metropolitain now is in the Place de 
la Republique. My pay amounted to the modest sum of 
just 45 francs a month ! . . . and yet, I am bound to say, 
I played remarkably well,— so much so that Berlioz actu- 
ally condescended once to compliment me, adding, — 
1 And what is more, you play true, which is a very un- 
common thing '. Now to be ' handy with the sticks ' and 

277 



278 WALKS IN PARIS 

to 'play true' are the two ambitions of every kettle- 
drummer ; so here was my first success assured ! I lived 
in the Rue Menilmontant, No. 5, in a tiny room high up 
under the slates in a queer house almost exclusively 
occupied by the acrobats and other employe's of the 
Cirque, — clowns, equestriennes, tight-rope dancers, pretty 
contortionists and tumblers, who kept their little homes 
tidy and watched the pot boil, while they rehearsed their 
professional 'turns,' juggling, throwing somersaults, wrig- 
gling through impossibly small hoops. ... On Sunday 
mornings all would start out in the highest spirits to 
breakfast al fresco, in the country,^-and when you had 
spent 30 sous, what extravagance you thought it ! . . 
How young we were, to be. sure ! . . . 

"After spending the day at the" Conservatoire, I used 
to repair at half-past five to the Rue Basse-du-Temple, a 
lane running parallel with the Boulevard, but at a lower 
level; on to it opened the stage-doors, for actors and em- 
ployes of every sort. The play began in those days at 
six o'clock. What a crowd and a crush and a confusion 
it was! just think, all the supers and scene-shifters and 
dressers and chorus girls of the ten theatres which were 
then massed in this same Boulevard du Temple* jammed 
together in the little narrow, muddy alley, reeking with 
wine-shops and half blocked with stalls where they sold 
hot sausages and apple-puffs ! How filthy and ' grubby ' 
it all was, and what a stench of garlick ! . . . But then 
how amusing and picturesque and alive ! ... 

■: Once ensconced in my place in the orchestra, I used 
to work at my music during the dialogues, — there was 
plenty of ' spoken ' in the Comic Operas of those days. I 
had drawn music staves on the stretched parchment of my 



THK OLD BOULEVARD DU TEMPLE 

instruments, and so worked out my ' fugue' exercises on 
them, making rny kettle-drums serve me as a blackboard. 
It was all clear profit. I did not waste my time, and I saved 
several sheets of music-paper at three sous the five sheets ! 
.- . i During the intervals we used to gather in what had 
once been the stables of the Thcdtrc-Historiquc, built by 




Massenet, in 1864 

the great Dumas to lodge the steeds of d'Artagnan and 
Bussy d'Amboise! M. Rety, the Manager, had made it- 
into a greenroom for us, a poor bare place dimly lighted 
by a couple of guttering candle-ends. . . . 

" What exciting artistic battles have been fought out 
on this Stage where everything favoured novelty and bold- 



280 WALKS IN PARIS 

ness and enterprise! ... It was there La Statue was 
produced in 1858, a masterly work of the great Reyer 
whom I admire so sincerely . . . and the first representa- 
tion of Faust, on 19th March, 1859 ! Gounod, the incom- 
parable Gounod, had won all our hearts, we believed in 
his rising genius ; Mme. Miolan-Carvalho was sublime, a 
great artist indeed ! — We used to rehearse almost by stealth, 
under the direction of the excellent Leo Delibes, at that 
time Chorus master . . . everyone knew there was an 
organised hostile cabal — the new music, remember, was so 
utterly different from that of the successful composers of 
the day ! . . . All connected with the representation were 
in a state of intense nervous anxiety, the piece seemed too 
long for one thing, . . . and Gounod shed tears . . . yes, 
real tears ... at the ' cuts ' he was forced to make in 
his score. When the ' first night ' came, Faust was ap- 
plauded certainly, but not so enthusiastically as we had 
expected or as the beautiful music deserved. The whole 
of the first Act was well received, and the Chorus of Old 
Men and the Famous Waltz were both encored ; as for 
the Garden Scene, people could make nothing of it. . . . 
Yet Mme. Carvalho, Barbot and Balanque, who played 
Mephisto, had been perfect in it. Leon Carvalho had ar- 
ranged an exquisite mise en scene ; for the first time on the 
stage the moon was made to rise over a garden scented 
with real flowers. But no, the audience remained cold. 
... In the following Acts, the Soldiers' Chorus and the 
concluding Trio were encored. . . . For twelve or thirteen 
nights the struggle continued obstinately between the 
detractors, who hissed on every possible opportunity, and 
the enthusiastic admirers of the new piece. The Com- 
missary of Police of the District attended every performance, 




3 









28o 



>5 



ness and enterprtse!\ . J. It was|^U*ere L*<Statue y; 
prodtced in 1858,^ masterly work^ff^the great Reyt 
whon\I admire so siriterely .£ . aid the first represe 
tion if lutiist, on 19th March^iScc ! Gounod, the iiWom- 
paraHJe Aounod, had wort all<oilr hearts, we belieVed in 
his rikim?Venius; Mme, MiolanfC irvalho was suj^ime, a 
:t\ndeed ! — We used to re 




f th 



;ection o 
^master 



(e cabal— jth 
}ntVom thalt 
All 



learse almost by stealth, 
ex&llent Leo Deli 



r o ie knew 
1 msic, rem 
: uccessf 

)resefft 



f%itense nervous anxiety, the piece 
fid Gount5a^shed te; 
fye was foVced 
came, Fc 
lusia itically 

deserved 
and :h<; Chlor 




Vheh 
c^rtninl) 

rks the 
Act was 



MeDhistc, hid bse 1 peifedt in 




>eau:iful music 
well received, 



the Famous Walt£ Jrer^ both encor 
rarVlen Scere, people :c$l<fl make '" 
mf. tarvtllio, Barltof aVicl Bal 




ran ^ed an exqui i\\amJe e\i scene Lfoi> 



ldthinsr 



in 



Lecn 



}ue, 



. . . yes, 

make in 

ttsj was^ap- 

we^ad 

|he w<hole 

* ofgbid 

; aWor 

* it. r. . 



wjio played 
Canfalllo had ar- 



th- first t 



:he m Don i^as made/ t(S r^se over a gar 
vitK rea' 



01 



in juii wdb maue/ t(j» rise over a garaerT~5ceriteg ^ 

flc wers. NBu4Hio, the\iudierice reijwinec^cold^ 

Uowing Acts, the Soldiers' Chor 



th 



rio were encore^. . . . For twelve 



tfie struggleGcontinjaed o@tinately 



dt thirteen 



be tween tr^e 



de ractors, who hissed on every possible opp^ri unity, anfl 
4 er>tfrtisi^stic admirej^oTlh^new piece. 



missary of Police ol the District atteni 



The Coin- 
form < 







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U 

- 



u 

DC 



u 



— 



282 WALKS IN PARIS 

by order, ready to intervene, at any moment, should the 
two factions come to blows. It was two years afterwards, 
when Garvalho ventured on a revival, that the triumph of 
the masterpiece was assured beyond the possibility of doubt 
or discussion ! . . . 

" Then how many other memories cling about it ! . . . 
Orphee above all, and Mine. Viardot, who played the part of 
Eurydice so admirably. "This was in 1859; but to this 
day I can hear the wonderfuLyoice mounting and descend- 
ing the chromatic scale in the great final aria of the First 
Act. ... It is all long ago now; but a^s unforgettable as 
ever !...." 

Yes, Massenet is right ; all who ever knew this fascinat- 
ing Boulevard du Temple have retained an ineffaceable 
memory of the place. Our fathers and grandfathers could 
not speak of it without a show of feeling, and the picture 
representing its general aspect which hangs in one of the 
rooms of the Musee Camavalet is a special favourite with 
the Parisian public and seldom fails to draw an interested 
crowd about it. 

This famous Boulevard was opened in 1670, by order 
of Louis XIV.; it continued "the line of thoroughfare 
which, traversing the enclosure and marsh of the Temple, 
began at the Porte Saint- Antoine to terminate at the 
Rue des Filles-du-Calvaire" . Very soon this fine, tree- 
shaded avenue became the fashion, and all the world 
hastened to make the "tour of the Ramparts". It was 
an attractive corner of the town, brimming over with life 
and stir and gaiety ; such was the press of carriages filled 
with the elegantes of Paris that about four in the afternoon 
the traffic could only move at a foot's-pace between the 
Boulevard des Filles-du-Calvaire and the Bastille. Indeed 



THE OLD nori.EVARI.) 1)U TEMffJ I 283 

the prisoners in t'hat fortress, such of them as enjoyed the 
i( freedom of the ' terraces," never failed to mount to the 
top of the towers and walls at this hour, provided with 




Street Musicians under the Directory 

spyglasses, to watch their fair friends disporting them- 
selves below and wave a greeting to them from afar. . . . 
No fete is complete in Paris without its side-shows ; con- 
jurers and mountebanks soon had their stands there, and 



284 WALKS IN PARIS 

the ballad-singer trilled out to the jingle of her hurdy- 
gurdy the prettiest couplets of the Abbe de Lattaignant, 
Colle or Panard. Nicolet, in 1760, set up a booth, where 
all Paris came to gape at the famous ape that mimicked so 
comically the tricks and mannerisms of the actor Mole. 
. . . Le Grimacier, another celebrity of the Boulevard, 
made a fortune and sold the goodwill of his trestles and 
boards to a comrade, with the delightful stipulation, how- 
ever, that he " was always to remain Grimacier in chief, 
without trespass on his prerogative ". . . . Mile. Malaga, 
a pretty rope-dancer who drew all eyes with her red tights 
and gold spangles, was another recognised institution. 
Curtius established a branch exhibition there, a depend- 
ancy of his famous Wax-Works Show ; and it was thence, 
on 1 2th July, 1789, one fine sunny Sunday, that the 
people carried off the busts of Necker and the Due 
d'Orleans to parade them in triumph, sheltered under a 
black veil, through the streets of Paris. . . . The rest of 
the story is familiar, — how the procession was stopped 
in the Place Vendome by a detachment of the Royal- 
Allemand regiment, and how the Sieur Pepin, a haber- 
dasher's shop-assistant, the proud bearer of the image of 
Necker, was shot in the leg and sabred in the body, and 
fell bleeding beside the broken bust ! 

The Revolution, which bursts all fetters, is greeted 
with enthusiasm on the Boulevard du Temple, where ten 
Theatres stood grouped together, — the Gaietc, the Am- 
bigu, the Delassements- Comiques, the Varietes-A musantes, — 
merely to mention two or three. . . . The Empire 
dragoons them, and Charles X. "censures" them; but 
it was only the sun of July (Revolution of 1830) that 
inaugurated the full triumph of the " Boulevard du ( rime ". 



THE OLD BOULEVARD DU TEMPLE 285 

Such was the picturesque nickname the Parisians in- 
vented for this " home of the drama," where every evening 
from six to eleven so many crimes were perpetrated, — 
so many virtuous maidens wronged, children kidnapped by 
villains, and the like: in fact virtue never triumphed till, 
at the earliest, a quarter past eleven ! Every evening 
this cheerful thoroughfare was thronged by threatre-goers 
long before the doors opened, — between five and six. 
Patiently the public waited in "queue" confined between 
long wooden barriers, munching apple-puffs and Bologna 
sausages with garlick, quaffing tumblers of liquorice-water 
or sucking oranges, the peel of which the " gods " care- 
fully collected and put by in their pockets against the 
time when they could pitch it at the bald heads in the stalls. 

A lookout was kept for the arrival of the more popular 
actors and actresses, — such as Frederick Lemaitre, Saint- 
Ernest, Bouffe, Melingue, Bocage, Deburau, Paulin- 
Menier, Colbrun, Mmes. Derval, Leontine, Dejazet, 
Clarisse Miroy and even Ameline, the giantess, who played 
without any fear of possible rivalry, drum-major at the 
Cirque, and used to promenade the street carrying in her 
arms her little friend Carolina-la-Laponne, the professional 
dwarf. So passionately enthusiastic was the public that, 
on 20th February, 1847, the date of the first performance 
of Dumas' La Reine Margot, at the Tliedtre-Historiqut\ 
the " queue " was formed twenty-four hours before the box- 
offices were open, and the play, which began at six, did 
not finish till three o'clock next morning ! 

Simultaneously with this revival of dramatic art by 
the Romantic School, the Napoleonic legend was enjoy- 
ing a new lease of life. The Cowrier des Theatres of 
20th October, 1830, contains the following amazing list 



286 WALKS IN PARIS 

of announcements:— Vaudeville,— Bonapmie, lieutenant 
dartillerie ; Varietes,— Nap olcon a Berlin ou la Red- 
ingote grise; Nouveaut6s,—L'Ecotier de Brienne ou le 
Petit Caporal (Mile. Dejazet); Ambigu — Napoleon ; 
Cirque- 01ympique,—Z* Passage du Mont Saint-Bernard 
(Military spectacle in 7 tableaux). 

There were three or ■ four . actors,— Gobert, Cazot, 
Prudent, who played Napoleon in these and the like 
pieces, and the worthy fellows had ended by taking them- 
selves seriously. Bent brows, cocked hat, Olympian look, 
all was copied to the life ; and they loved to show them- 
selves on the Boulevard in the legendary poses of the 
great .Emperor — twirling a Caesarean lock between ner- 
vous fingers, hands clasped behind the back, or gravely 
taking snuff out of the leatherJined pocket of a white 
kerseymere waistcoat ! 

Under the Second Empire the same happy state of 
things continued, at least for the first ten .years, in, the 
Boulevard du Temple,-~the scene by-the-bye of Fieschi's 
hideous; and bloody attempt on the life of Louis-Philippe 
on 28th JfUly, 1835 ; more and more Theatres were opened, 
till, they formed an almost unbroken series all the way 
from the Faubourg du Temple as far as the Rue d An- 
gouleme, following a line which, after crossing diagonally 
over the site of the present Hotel Modeme,. the Place du 
Chdteau-dEau and the first half-dozen houses in the 
Boulevard Voltaire would terminate at what is now No. 
48 in the existing Boulevard du Temple. These were — 
the TkMtre-Lyrique, the Cirque-Imperial, the Poizes -Dram - 
atiques, the Gaiete (on the site of the right-hand corner 
house of the Boulevard Voltaire,— the spot where, in May, 
1 87 1, the Communards raised the barricade at which 



THE OLD BOULEVARD DU TEMPI I 287 

Delescluze was killed), the Funamhules, the DHassements- 
Comiques, the PetiULazari i then ,-1 little further on the 




3 



00 

£ 

o 



% 



Cirque dHiver, and almost directly opposite, the Thcdtre- 
Dejazet. Each of these Houses had its own public and 



288 WALKS IN PARIS 

its own speciality. Yet once and again an unfortunate 
attempt was tried to revive the Classical drama, and some 
such dialogue as this might be overheard, — " Is it true 
they played Moliere yesterday at the Gaiete '?" — " Yes, — 
the Misanthrope." — " And who was the Misanthrope? ' — 
"Why, the Treasurer to be sure ! " 

In 1862 the inexorable fiat of Baron Haussmann put 
an end to the " Boulevard du Crime ! " It was a sad blow 
for Paris, which loved the fascinating spot where, from 
generation to generation, rich and poor alike had laughed 
and cried so heartily ! Protests and petitions were made by 
the score, but all in vain, — the ruthless Prefet stuck to his 
guns, and on the night of 15th July, 1862, when the clocks 
struck twelve, they rang the doom of all these Theatres, 
the demolition of which was to begin next morning 

Not a vestige remains to-day, save the old name and 
the old happy memories. Poor Boulevard du Temple ! 



THE BOURSE AND NEIGHBOURHOOD 

THE RUE VIVIENNE— THE SECTION LE PELETIER— THE 
THEATRE FEYDEAU— THE VAUDEVILLE— THE BOURSE 

/ \N 14th October, 1795 (12 Vendemiaire, Year IV.), 
^^ about ten at night, the inhabitants of the Rue 
Vivienne were roused out of their beauty sleep by confused 
sounds of shouting and tumult, by the rumble of cannon 
over the stones, the trampling of horses and the tramp- 
tramp of regiments marching. . . . Rushing to their 
windows, they discovered to their amazement that the 
street was in possession of the military ; grenadiers, 
hussars, artillerymen filled the roadway, while alongside 
the houses Orderly Officers were galloping in frantic 
haste. Such was the state of things all alone the 
street, — from the steps of the Palais-Royal to the other 
extremity of the Rue 1 r tvienne, where it ended at the 
entrance porch of the ex-Convent of the Filles-Saint- 
ThomaSy the ancient buildings and extensive gardens of 
which covered the whole area now occupied by the Place 
de la Bourse. 

It was this Convent, closed since the beginning of the 
Revolution and now become the " Section Ic Pelcticr" 
that was being surrounded by a contingent of the garrison 
of Paris, under the orders of General Menou, supported 
by three Commissioners, Members of the Convention. 
In 1795 Paris was a prey to the most atrocious scarcity. 
19 289 



2QO WALKS IN PARIS 

Every night endless " queues " stood in plaintive patience 
at the doors of the bakers' and butchers' shops. It was 
only by presenting a ticket, — and these were very sparingly 
given, — that the unhappy citizen finally obtained very in- 
sufficient rations of bread and meat. Unscrupulous specu- 
lators and monopolists were keeping all the necessaries of 
life at famine prices, and through their delinquencies the 
Convention was accused of trying to " starve the people," 
while " assignats " were so disastrously depreciated that, 
on 14th October, 1795, the louis (Tor was worth 1,255 
livres ... in paper ! The Sections were in revolt, and 
the Convention, finding itself the object of threats and 
insults, had resolved to take energetic measures of self- 
defence, to strike a decisive blow, — in fact to invest and 
disarm and close the Section le Peletier, the nucleus of the 
rising. 

This Section had the reputation, not undeservedly, of 
favouring reactionary and Royalist tendencies. The bat- 
talion of the Filles-Saiiit-TJwmas had been the only one 
to join the Swiss Guards in defending the Tuileries on 
the fatal 10th August, 1792. Throughout the Revolution, 
" moderatism " had been rampant there, and since Ther- 
midor the Section le Peletier had rallied together all the 
11 privileged plotters," all the " alarmists," all the " mus- 
cadins" with their love-locks and all the " incroyables* 
with their black coat-collars. Richer-Serizy, the Baron 
de Batz, the Comte de Castellane, General Danican, 
and the emissaries of the exiled Princes were busily fanning 
the flames of Civil War under its shelter. That was why 
more than 20,000 armed men had been massed in the dis- 
trict, one regiment almost treading on the heels of another. 
But now talk took the place of action, discussion of decision ; 




9 



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292 WALKS IN PARIS 

already the troops were fraternising and drinking with the 
citizens, while before the doors Generals and plumed Con- 
ventionnels were exchanging abuse and threats and argu- 
ments with angry members of the Section. One of the 
latter, the young De Lallot, fell to haranguing the troops 
in highflown phrases, — " Tremble, soldiers, at the violence 
you would commit if you invaded these precincts. ... Is 
the Section le Peletier a hostile fortress? . . . Are we 
Austrians and enemies? ... In the name of the Law I 
call upon you to withdraw. . . ." Finally the onlookers 
at this extraordinary scene beheld with utter amazement 
General Menou yield to the insurgents' representations 
and give the word to beat a retreat. 

Among others who looked on with indignation at this 
capitulation of the troops in the face of insurrection, was 
a young man, with a pale face, burning eyes and long 
hair straggling over the shoulders, badly dressed in a 
threadbare greatcoat, and wearing a hat too big for him. 
This was General Napoleon Bonaparte, at that time 
" without employment, pay or rations," whose name had 
been erased three weeks before from the roster of General 
Officers on active service. Cashiered by Aubry as a 
" terrorist," he was vegetating in Paris, poor, almost un- 
known and in so desperate a mood that only the day be- 
fore he had told Barras, — " No matter at what sacrifice, I 
must find employment. If I cannot get anything to do, 
I shall go and ask service as a gunner at Constanti- 
nople." 1 

After spending his evening in a box at the Thedtre 
Feydeau, the circular facade of which, adorned with carya- 

J Mi-moires de Barras, vol. i., p. 244. 



THE BOURSE AND NEIGHBOURHOOD 293 

tides, was at No. 25 Rue Feydeau, —on the site of the pre- 
sent Rue de la Bourse, — and listening to a tearful piece 
called Le Bon Fils by the citoyen Hennequin, music by the 
citoyen Lebrun (attached to the theatre), he was making 
his way back by the Passage (known subsequently as the 
Rue dcs Colonnes, and still existing almost intact) and 
Rue des Filles-Saint-Thomas to the shabby hotel where 
he was living. ti 4 I VEnseigne de la Liberty" in the Rue des 
Fosse" s-Montmartre (now the Rue dAboukir\ near the 
Place des Victoires. From the corner of the Rue Vivi- 
ciinc 1 he witnessed General Menou's shameful retreat and 
saw the troops pocket their insult and march away 
" ba) onet in sheath ". Bonaparte was furious, and fol- 
lowed the soldiers on their way back to the Convention. 
He hurried into the galleries of the Assembly Hall "to 
judge the effect of the news and note developments and 

1 Occupying the whole space enclosed by the Rue Vivienne, the Rue 
Richelieu, the Rue des Petits Champs and the Rue Colbert, is the famous 
Bibliotheque Nationale, the largest and richest Library in the world. The 
vast building stands on the site of the Palace of Cardinal Mazarin (d. 
1661), but hardly a vestige of the original building remains. The Library, 
— down to the Revolution the Bibliotheque du Roi, and under Napoleon 
I. and III. the Bibliotheque Imperiale, — may be said to date back to 
Saint-Louis (d. 1270), who established a library at the Sninte-Chapelle, 
to which Charles V. (" Le Sage ") largely added, as on a still larger scale 
did Louis XL, who established the collection at the Chateau de Blois. 
Francois I. (d. 1517) removed the Library to Fontainebleau, and decreed 
that a copy of every book printed in France must be deposited in the 
Royal Library. A little later the books were removed to Paris, but it 
was not till 1774, under Louis XV., that the Library found its final home 
in the Palais Mazarin. It embraces four departments : 1. Printed books 
and maps; 2. MSS. ; 3. Fngravings and prints ; 4. Medals and Antiques. 
The number of volumes exceeds 3,000,000. This very greatlv outnumbers 
the Library of the British Museum; but the accommodation for readers, 
and all arrangements for the finding and issuing of books are superior at 
the latter. [Transl.] 







V 



THE BOURSE AND NEIGHBOURHOOD 295 

see what colour the matter would take". 1 . . . The rest of 
the story is familiar to all. The Convention, half wild 
with chagrin, cashiers the incompetent Menou and appeals 
to Barras, who suggests, to replace the superseded General, 
" Bonaparte, a little Corsican Officer, who wirl not make 
so many scruples about things ". The next day, 13 Ven- 
demiaire, the rebels were swept into annihilation on the 
Quai Voltaire and the steps of Saint-Roch, and the star 
of Bonaparte, promoted two days later to be General of 
Division, rose radiant on the horizon. The " little Corsican 
Officer" had been well inspired on the 12 Vendemiaire 
when he visited the Theatre Feydeau to hear the rather 
feeble play of " The Good Son " ! 

The Theatre Feydeau had begun brilliantly ; founded 
in 1789 under the auspices of Monsieur, the King's brother, 
subsequently Louis XVI 1 1., it soon developed into a 
dangerous rival of the Theatre Favart, and the two rival 
stages entered on an artistic duel, the most evident result 
of which was to involve both in ruin. Thereupon they 
agreed to make peace, and ended their differences by an 
amalgamation, which saved them. On 1 6th September, 
1 801, the two united companies gave a performance in 
formal inauguration of the Theatre Feydeau, which had 
been repaired and redecorated for the occasion, renamed 
" Theatre de I ' Opera-Comique" and endowed by the 

1 Memorial de Sainte-Hclcne, vol. i., p. 311. 

" When we saw Menou fail us at the pinch, and the Committee of 
Public Safety without a notion what to do next, I said : ' There is nothing 
easier than to supersede Menou ; I have the very man we want, — a little 
Corsican ( )rhcer, who will not make so many scruples about things '. The 
Committee accepted my proposal, and at once consented to put Bonaparte 
on active service." — Memoir es de Barras, vol. i., p. 250. 



296 WALKS IN PARIS 

Government with a subvention of 50,000 francs, — had 
Bonaparte perhaps borne in mind his providential evening 
at the play on 1 2 Vendemiaire ? 

For years the Opera-Comique was the delight of Paris ; 
but eventually it fell on evil days again. The House, which 
was falling into ruin, was finally closed in 1828, and re- 
built on a different site, facing the Place, opposite the 
Bourse, just raised by Brongniart on the vast area formerly 
occupied by the gardens and Convent of the Filles-Saint- 
Thomas ; in other words, the new Opera-Com ique opened 
its doors on the exact spot where the Rue dit ^.-Septembre 
now begins. Not till 1840 did it return to the Rue Fav- 
art ; and it was the Vaudeville, — the old building in the 
Rue de CJiartres having lately been burnt down. — which 
took possession of the empty House, and down to 1869 
was one of the glories and delights of Paris. Under the 
Second Empire indeed the Vaudeville enjoyed the dis- 
tinction of welcoming the firct manifestations of modern 
dramatic literature. Alexandre Dumas fils, opened the 
ball with the Dame aux Camelias, and before long Emile 
Augier, Octave Feuillet, Th. Barriere, Alph. Karr, L. 
Thiboust, Labiche kept its stage supplied with a long suc- 
cession of plays from their violent, daring, witty, incisive and 
sarcastic repertoire ; Henri Meilhac and Ludovic HaleVy 
produced on the same famous boards, 24th November, 1 862, 
Les Brebis de Pan urge and La Clc de Metella, thereby 
inaugurating a series of little masterpieces which have now 
definitely won their niche in the temple of Fame. Finally, 
it was there that Vifctorien Sardou triumphed with Les 
Femmes Fortes, Nos Intimes and La Famille Benoiton, 
Such was the popularity of the last-named play that the 
Manager of the Vaudeville put this unusual notice in the 



THE BOURSE AND NEIGHBOURHOOD 29; 

papers: " In view of the great numbers of foreigners ap- 
plying at the box-office, an Interpreter will be in attendance 




CARTE 







Bonaparte, 12 Vendemiaire, An IV 

from to-morrow speaking several languages ". More than 
that, to put the crown on its vogue, not only did every 
fancy-shop in Paris display in the window the photographs 
of the exponents of this pleasing comedy, but even a pork- 



298 WALKS IN PARIS 

butcher of Belleville moulded in lard two figures repre- 
senting Felix and Frederic Febvre, two of the leading 
actors at the Theatre ! 

The formation of the new Rue du ^-Septembre (which 
up to that date — 4th September, 1870 — was known as 
the Rue du 10-Dccembre. in memory of the plebiscite) 
abolished this Vaudeville of happy fortunes. The last per- 
formance, in the Place de la Bourse, I rth April, 1869, was 
of the Dame aux Camclias ; on the 23rd of the same 
month the new House was opened in the Boulevard des 
Capucines. Then came the war, the Siege of Paris, the 
Commune, and a noteworthy watercolour sketch of Pils 
shows us the Artillery bivouacking, in June, 1871, in the 
same Place where Menou's men had made such a deplor- 
able spectacle of themselves in 1795. . . . 

A peculiarly picturesque corner of this noisy and 
crowded Square is the old Restaurant Champeaux, the 
cellars of which once formed part of the Convent of the 
Filles-Saint-Thomas. Dejeuner there is a new experience. 
At the hour when the Bourse begins its clamorous dealings 
in stocks and shares, the restaurant fills with busy and 
hungry customers who gulp down the fare provided as if 
eating for a wager against time. Young men dash in like 
a whirlwind, hat on head and pencil in hand, and clap 
down a little white card beside the dishes on the table ; 
this is the quotation of prices as they stand at the moment. 
Thus the customer is able, stock and share list in one hand 
and wine-list in the other, to order in the same breath 300 
Chemin de Fer du Nord and a half bottle of Saint-Estephe. 
The first runner is hardly gone before his place is taken 
by another, to be rapidly succeeded by a third. There 
are knitted brows and shakings of the head and dubious 



THE BOURSE AND NEIGHBOURHOOD 299 

mutterings, — " D'you re-ally think so? . . . Is it official, 
ch ? . . . Very well, then, I stick to my little lot!" . . . 
Then, still in a tearing hurry, still pencilling figures and 
still hat on head, these Mercuries of Fortune whirl off again, 
with -rapid, mysterious nods. . . . How many indigestions 







Artillery encamped in the Place dc la Bourse 

must be got in this restaurant (an excellent one in itself), 
so closely in touch with the agitations of the Exchange 
over the way ! As they peel a pear, or pick a partridge 
on toast, these gentlemen of the Bourse may perhaps be 
in the act of making a fortune, — or losing one ! Yes, it 
is a strange thing to think of, and certainly impresses the 



:oo 



WALKS IN PARIS 



imagination . . . But alas! another and a much less seemly- 
fancy will intrude. As I look out at the windows and see 
the Bourse opposite, somehow I seem to see silhouetted 




The Bourse 

against the white pillars of its colonnade, the predatory 
features of Robert Macaire and Bertrand, as they are shown 
in a savage cartoon of Daumier's adorning a " projected 
peristyle" for this the High Temple of Stock-jobbery ! 



THE COLONNE VENDOME AND NEIGHBOUR- 
HOOD 

AT certain hours familiar enough to a host of men of 
all ages to whom the sight of a pretty face is far 
from being unattractive, the Rue de la Paix and the 
Place Vendome prove beyond a doubt the most fascinating 
of Parisian resorts. But it would be a mistake to set 
down the Colonne Vendome as the sole, or indeed main, 
object of their habit of lingering about the spot. 

The fact is that several times a day this home of 
luxury, this Promised Land of elegance, where lovely 
frocks are fashioned of fabrics shot with gold and silver, 
mantles are embroidered with fabulous richness, and hats 
are trimmed till the)- glitter like jewels and wave with 
plumes like a gallant of the Court of Louis XIV., is en- 
livened by a bright-hued crowd of pretty girls, almost 
without exception good-looking and graceful. They are 
the models and saleswomen and errand-runners of the 
fashionable modistes and great milliners' shops of world- 
wide fame, bearing such names as Reboux, Virot, Doucet, 
Paquin and the like. They are the cleverest of work- 
women, whose fairy like fingers are unrivalled in the arts 
of manipulating silk and lawn, satin and gauze, so as to 
make the fascinating wearers more fascinating still. Yes, 
here we have the quintessence of all that is most chic in 
the world of dress passing before our eyes. . . . 

301 



302 WALKS IN PARIS 

A killing glance, a smile, a compliment, and the 
merry-hearted toilers hurry back to the workroom blush- 
ing like so many roses. 

At evening closing-time there are always some who 
find a " friend " waiting in the shadow of a doorway, only 
betrayed by the gleam of his cigarette. Then the pair, 
arm in arm, slip rapidly away in the discreet dusk . . . 
and I am told there are actually superficial minds in ex- 
istence who think this better fun than Mathematics! 



From the very first this imposing, majestically propor- 
tioned Place has been destined for the noblest uses. 
Raised on the site of the hotel and gardens of the Due 
de Vendome, son of Henri IV. and " la Belle Gabrielle," 
the "Place Louis-le-Grand" was begun by Louvois. His 
plans were on the grandest scale, and the statue of the 
" Rol-Soleil" was to occupy the centre of a vast area. On 
Louvois' death, however, Louis XIV., scared at the im- 
mense outlay, ordered the works to be stopped. Subse- 
quently the King resold the land to the City of Paris, 
which in turn parcelled it out to individual proprietors, on 
condition of conforming to one general plan. Thereupon 
the great financiers hastened to erect a series of sumptu- 
ous mansions for their accommodation. 

Those now forming the Ministry of Justice (Nos. u 
and 13) were built by two millionaire farmers of the 
revenue, Bourvalais and Villemarecq. The Regent sus- 
pecting the rectitude of their administration, — and not 
without good reason, — brought them both to book ; the 
two hotels were seized as securities and remained the pro- 
perty of the Crown ; finally, in 17 17, Dangeau announced 



THE COLONNE VENDOME 303 

that they had been made the residence of the Grand 
Chancellors of France. 

About the same date, Law, Controller-General of 
Finance, inhabited the house now numbered 21, and a 
provisional Bourse was established under the shadow of 
the statue of Louis XIV. ; for, while modifying Louvois' 
plans, the '• Grand Monarqne" had deigned to keep intact 
the equestrian figure of himself, the work of the sculptor 
Girardon. Tumblers and mountebanks came next ; the 
merry-andrews of the Foire Saint-Ovide set up their 
booths in 1762 in the Place Louis-le-Grand. Thither the 
Sieurs Gandon and Nicolet drew Court and town ; thither 
the fashionable world flocked to applaud Arlequin racoleur, 
and quaff "all kinds of Burgundy wines at the Caffe 
Royal". Driving races were held there, and sumptuous 
processions passed that way ; in fact it was one of the 
chosen haunts of Parisian high life. 

The Revolution broke out, and on 10th August, 1792, 
the Assembly having decreed the demolition of all the 
statues of Kings, " immense crowds " poured into the Public 
Squares and found a fierce joy in hurling to the ground 
these "odious emblems of feudality". 1 The ponderous 
equestrian figure of Louis XIV. was not easily shifted ; 
capstans having been tried and failed, ropes were passed 
round the statue and hundreds of willing hands hauled on 
them. One woman was especially conspicuous for her 
furious energy. At last the bronze colossus gives way, 



1 << 



" Already the tocsin had sounded, and all was stir and movement. 
A numerous group of people was busy levelling the statue ol Louis XIV. ; 
several persons had been massacred in the Place, and the infamous Mile. 
Theroigne, in riding-habit and on horseback, was exciting the people to 
fresh murders."— De Vaublanc, Memoir es sur la Revolution francaise, 
vol. ii., p. 220. 



304 WALKS IN PARIS 

and falls on the virago who had displayed such frantic 
ardour, crushing her to death. She was called Rose 
Violet, and was one of the hawkers of Marat's Ami du 
Peuple ; her death was a loss to that distinguished citizen ! 
On 13th August following, at dusk, as he left the Con- 
vent des Feuillants (Monastery of the " Feuillantines," or 
Monks of St. Bernard), where he had fled for refuge after 
the taking of the Tuileries, Louis XVI. must have seen 
the remains of the monument still strewing the ground, 
the coach in which the Royal Family was packed having 
been directed, by order of the Sovereign People, to make 
a halt in the Place des Piques, as the Place Louis-le- Grand 
was now called, on its way to the Temple Prison. Two 
buildings of a stern and severe aspect then faced any one 
coming from the Place, on the farther side of the Rne 
Saint- Honore ; these were the Convent des Capucines 
(Monastery of the Capuchin Friars,— Franciscans)— now 
the Hotel Continental, — and the Convent des Fen Ulan ts, — 
on the site of the present Rue de Castiglione.the tall and im- 
posing Entrance Gateway of which rose in the median line 
of the Place. A narrow, crooked and dirty lane, called the 
Passage des Feuillants, winding between the two Religious 
Houses, was in 1792 the only thoroughfare connecting 
the Place with the Tuileries. It was continued, towards 
the Gardens, by a sort of vaulted corridor, on the left side 
of which was one of the entrances to the Salle dn Mam 
or Riding-School, which since November, 1789, had 
housed one after the other the Constituent Assembly, 
the Legislative Assembly and finally the Convention. 

The Hall where the sittings were held covered the space 
now occupied by the Rue de Rivoli— from the Entrance 
Gate of the Gardens as far as No. 228 or thereabouts. 



THE COLONNE VENDOME 



305 



When Louis XVI. was conveyed from the Temple to 
the Convention, the Monarch, " unhealthily fat and wear- 




Statue of Louis XIV. (Girardon) 



ing a three days' beard," must have passed through the 
Passaic des Fcuillants, always choked with filth and 



306 WALKS IN PARIS 

dark that the street lamps had to be kept burning in 
broad day. 

After the ioth of August, 1792, Danton, Minister of 
Justice, and Camille Desmoulins had installed themselves 
at the Ministry, while Robespierre, who was living close 
by, at No. 398 Rue Saint-Honore, at the cabinet-maker 
Duplay's, was lording it at the Section, where the ci-devant 
Marquis de Sade was Secretary and possessed no small 
influence. 

Again it was in the Place des Piques (Revolutionary 
title of the erstwhile Place Louis-le- Grand), on the pedes- 
tal of white marble which once bore the statue of Louis 
XIV., that for two days the body of Le Peletier- 
Saint-Fargeau lay in state. He had been assassinated 
on 20th January, 1793, — the day before the execution 
of the King, — by the ex-Bodyguard Paris in the lower 
room at the Restaurant Fevrier in the ci-devant Palais - 
Royal . 

In 1806 Napoleon I. ordered the construction of a 
great street to connect the Place with the Boulevards; 
— " I mean it to be the finest in Paris". The huge area 
covered by the gardens of the suppressed Couvenl des 
Capucines was cleared of the temporary structures that 
obstructed it, — a Panorama, a travelling theatre, and the 
Cirque Franconi, and lofty houses took their place. The 
new thoroughfare was baptised the Rue Napoleon, and 
it was only in 18 14 that it finally got the name of the 
Rue de la Paix. At the same date (1806, 1807) the Rue 
de Castiglione was constructed on the site of the " Feuil- 
lants " and the old Manege. 

In the Place Vendome the Emperor raised, " to the 
glory of the Grande Amide" a column surmounted by his 




Place Vcndomc- I -artier du 



WALKS IN PARIS 




kept 



Dunn 



iin 



ster of 

■ila-rreci themselves 

was living close 

KS(U&t-lfohore\ at the cabinet-maker 

uplay's, was lording it lit the 'Section, where the ci-devant 

uis de Sw.1l ^fas SecretarVand possessed no small 

uence. 

Again it was in Idflt^fHctte des \Piqnes (Revolutionary 
tie of the erstwhile Place Louis-le\ Grand), on the pedes- 
al of whitelmarble which once bore the statue of Louis 
IV., that! for tW^cPays** the bldy of Le Peletier- 
Saint-Fargeau lay in state. He llad been assassinated 
on 20th Jar\uary, 1793, — the day before the execution 



rnary, 

of the King,— H^_J±i£n ex, 
room at the Restaurant 
Royal . 



fuard Paris in the lower 
'evrier in the ci-devant Palais- 



Ss\\sJU 



^\v^ 



ni 8%6<^ 



$■ 



lered the construction of a 



connect $ftte Place with the Boulevards; 

1 I mean it to be thcJfipest in Paris". The huge area 

red by the garderl$ilf the suppressed Convent des 

- ...roc r-\^^f^A U/fr he temporar y gtnirfnrp-- *^'** ' 



.iriicines was cleared 1 01 fhe temppr... 
DbstruSre^rt^ a ranoVa m a, a travel i ng theatre, and tlic 



Cirqne Franconi, and lofty Blouses took their place. The 
new thoroughfare was mJtised the Rue Napolfon, and 
it was only in 1814 thapltl finally got the name of the 
Rm do A t J\iu-. At thu sal rm date (1806 , 1S07) thff tiuo 



de Castiglione waflNffPftwucted on tftfe site of the^-V////- 



lants" and the old Manege. 

In the Place ^M&<^thc*4^pSIW>fttaed, " to the 



glory of the Grande Armce" a column surmounted by 










♦i**n*^»**?»t»f/*it.*.*.t»f.*»*.*»ti*»t.t»«^ 



i£ 



P/acc IV«(/.»>;/t — From Plan of the Quarticr du Palais-Royal, by Jaillot, i 



308 WALKS IN PARIS 

statue, cast from the bronze of more than 1200 cannons 
captured from the Russians and Austrians. The great 
officers of State took possession of the princely hotels of the 
old regime surrounding the Square. 

Amongst others, the Commandant of Paris installed 
himself at No. 22 (ex- Hotel de Noce) ; and it was there that 
on 23rd October, 181 2, General Malet, that most daring 
of conspirators, arrived at earliest dawn to inform General 
Hulin that he was superseded, — and under arrest. 

" Show me your orders ! " demanded the Commandant 
in utter amazement. 

" Here they are ! " Malet retorted, smashing his jaw 
with a pistol ball. 

At the noise of the shot, Mme. Hulin, the General's 
wife, awakened by this untimely and unusual disturbance, 
rushed out to her husband's succour, 

. . . dans le simple appareil 
D'une beaute qu'on vient d'arracher au sommeil. 1 

Accordingly, three days later, the newspapers, with 
their usual lack of respect, did not miss the opportunity of 
insinuating that, if the General had shown weakness, at 
any rate " Mme. la Generale had shown herself in a good 
light ! " 

Leaving Hulin weltering in his blood, Malet crossed 
the Place and betook himself to No. 7, the Headquarters 
of the General Staff. There he was exposed and arrested 
by Colonel Doucet, before he had even reached the top of 
the stairs, in fact on the landing of the mezzanine floor; 
it was from the balcony overlooking the Square, that he 
was shown presently, bound and gagged, to the astounded 

1 ■' In the simple array of a beauty just roused from slumber." 



THE COLONNK VENDOME 309 

troops under the windows. . . . The beautiful building 
where this happened, which was the residence <>f the 
Governors of Paris, is now occupied by a fashionable 
Modiste s establishment, and our pretty Parisiennes flock 
there to try on their new "tailor-made" costumes in the 
salons where grave Staff Officers once met in deliberation, 
while a florist ot a most artistic turn, offers us bouquets of 
rosesand armfuls of peonies at the samecornerofthe Square 
at which for years, astraddle on cane-bottomed chairs, — like 
the "canaries ' in Carmen, — the Orderlies used to sit wait- 
ing for orders and watching "the world go by ". . . . The 
Place teems with other memories too ! It was at No. 1 8, in 
a house that is now fragrant with the scents oi&parfumert'e, 
that for over thirty years the club of the Union Artistique 
(now known by the still more enticing title of the Spatant) 
enchanted all Paris with its entertainments and exhibi- 
tions. 

It was at No. 12 that Chopin died, on 17th October, 
1849. After removing hurriedly to the Place Venddme y 
he felt he was dying. On Sunday the 15th October the 
illustriouS Musician, after a fierce bout of pain, sees at the 
foot of his bed the Comtesse Delphine Potocka, "tall and 
slender and dressed in black ". In scarcely audible tones 
he begged her to sing . . . they thought at first he was 
delirious, but he became more and more urgent. A piano 
was moved into the room, and the beautiful Comtesse, her 
eyes streaming with tears, sang with all her soul in her 
voice the air of S trad ell a and a psalm from Marcello. . . 
"Again, sing again!" murmured Chopin. All present, 
knelt round the room, sobbing and deeply affected, while 
the wondrous voice went on singing, cradling the dyino- 
artist on waves of harmony. ..." Evening was closing 



3io 



WALKS IN PARIS 



in, and Chopin's sister, lying prostrate by the bedside, 
remained in the same attitude till all was over." 1 



On 4th April, 1814, on the entry of the Allies into 
Paris, the platform of the Column on which Napoleon 
stood was invaded by a party of political fanatics armed 

with files, who tried to cut through 
the base of the statue, while others, 
amongst them the Marquis de 
Maubreuil, had fastened ropes to 
the figure and harnessed their 
horses to them. These violent 
attempts, however, were stopped by 
the authorities, and four days later 
the statue was lowered quietly and 
methodically to the ground, — an 
operation which cost 3,600 francs. 
As for the Emperor's effigy, it was 
thrown into the melting-pot, whence 
emerged in due course the statue 
of Henri IV. now standing in the 
Pont-Neuf. During the Restora- 
tion period, the white flag floated 
above an empty pedestal. 

On 28th July, 1833, Napoleon I., 
in cocked hat and redingote, was 
once more hoisted into the place of 
honour atop of the Column. But in 1865, Napoleon III., 
who previously to being elected President of the Republic 
had resided in the Place Vendome at the Hotel du Rhin 
(Nos. 4 and 6), deposed his Uncle's statue once more, and 

1 Chopin, by F. Liszt. 




Statue of Napoleon I. sur- 
mounting the Colonne 
Vendome 



THE COLONNE VENDOME 



3ii 



bartered it for a new figure representing him as a Roman 
Emperor. The story goes that the old soldiers, survivors 
of the great Wars, who used to come every 5th of May 
in pious memory of past glories, to lay their garlands at 
the foot of the famous Column, could not recognise their 
Emperor any more thus travestied, and spoke of the new 
figure in its flowing robes by the irreverent nickname of 
" the laundryman ". 

Penally, on 16th May, 187 1, by order of the Commune 
of Paris and under the surveillance of the painter G. 
Courbet, delegate for the Beaux- Arts, the Column, artfully 
weakened at its base by a diagonal cut, was brought 
down with the help of ropes and pulleys. The 252,000 
kilogrammes (250 tons) of bronze comprising it crashed 
down into the Place with a terrific clatter that terrified 
the inhabitants of the district, who for several days had 
had all their window-panes criss-crossed with strips of 
paper to save them from being broken by the concussion. 
Bergeret ( il himself") pronounced a discourse perched on 
the mutilated pedestal, and the Pere Duckene of next 
day spoke feelingly of the " noble procession of patriots 
round the Place Vendome, and his huge delight at seeing 
the cursed tyrant Badinguet I. flat on the ground, and 
how he had got a bit for himself! " In 1876 the Column 
was . re-erected by order of M. Thiers, then President of 
the Republic, at the expense of the Citoyen Courbet! 



In our own days the Place I 'endome has regained all 
its old brilliance . . . but its clientele is singularly modi- 
fied. No longer is it the great Nobles and rich Financiers 
who live there ; Staff Officers no longer prance across it, 
and the humble astronomer who down to 1880 used to 





o 



THE COLONNE VENDOME 313 

exhibit for two sous " the mountains of the Moon and 
Saturn's ring " has packed up his telescope and gone. 
Modern industrialism has taken possession; luxurious 
hotels, fashionable dressmakers, dealers in costly bric-a- 
brac, Insurance companies, modistes, a swell bootmaker 
. . . flaunt their shop-signs along its walls. 

About five o'clock a cosmopolitan crowd of elegantly 
attired dames come there to refresh themselves with a 
cup of tea after their fatigues in ransacking the artistic and 
costly treasures of the jewellers in the Rue de la Paix. 
The rendezvous is Ritz's, where you will hear scandal and 
frocks discussed in all the languages of the civilised 
world. They all meet there, wealthy Americans, blue- 
blooded Englishwomen, lisping Russians, flaxen-haired 
Swedes, not to mention the sylph-like beauties of Vienna 
and dark-skinned Senoras from Chili ! . . . The latest 
news from Smyrna is discussed, and the society gossip 
of Caraccas ; "Fifth Avenue" is voted vulgar, and Con- 
stantinople abused for its dulness. Outside, in the old 
Place Louis A'//'., the horses stamp, motor cars snort 
and jangle, and footmen yawn, while from his lofty pedes- 
tal of bronze Napoleon the Great gazes down at this 
twentieth-century invasion of the fair ladies of all lands, 
who with smiling lips and laughing eyes seem to be try- 
ing their hand at the conquest of the ever-desirable City 
of Paris. 



THE PLACE DE LA CONCORDE 

SMALL causes, as we know, often produce great effects, 
and it is really amazing to consider what a trans- 
formation the sickness with which Louis XV. was at- 
tacked at Metz produced in Paris ! To begin with, the 
King, in fulfilment of a vow then made, began the con- 
struction of the Pantheon, the imposing mass of which 
modified the familiar skyline of the old city. Then the 
Provosts of the Merchants and the Echevins of Paris 
voted an equestrian statue to their well-beloved Sovereign. 
The latter accepted the offering and signified the spot 
where the monument was to be erected, " between the 
moat at the extremity of our Garden of the Tuileries and 
the Quay which borders the river ". 

Most people thought the Monarch had selected a 
singularly inappropriate site. In fact the place was a 
stretch of open ground where market-gardeners grew 
their cabbages and lettuces ; it was surrounded by stone- 
faced moats where " idle fellows resorted to play bowls." 
However it was no use disputing the Royal pleasure. 
Bouchardon was chosen to execute the monument. " The 
King, crowned with laurels and arrayed in Roman cos- 
tume, sat a prancing charger of bronze ; " round the 
pedestal, which was of white marble adorned with bas- 

314 



THE PLACE DE I. A CONCORDE 315 

reliefs in celebration of the Monarch's exploits, were four 

figures of the Virtues, gazing in ecstasy at their exponent. 

Bouchardon spent over fourteen years on this costly and 

elaborate ex-voto^ but died before even beginning the 

pedestal. Pigalle completed the masterpiece, which was 

unveiled on 2nd June, 1765. But alas! Louis XV. had 

lost his popularity long ago now, and the Parisians were 

convulsed with mocking laughter when next day they 

read this couplet scribbled on the base by some anonymous 

wit : — 

Ah ! la belle statue ! oh ! le beau piedestal ! 
Les Vertus sont a pied et le Vice a cheval ! ' 

Epigrams apart, the monument formed a fine central 
ornament to the noble Place which the architect Gabriel 
was laying out according to the uniform and admirable 
plan he had traced out. This included parterres of flowers, 
dry moats enclosed with stone balustrades, ornamental 
pavilions, arj^d to complete the whole superb design, the 
two magnificent blocks of building on the North side of 
the Square, the incomparable facade of which is one of 
the glories of Paris, — the present Ministry of Marine and 
the Hotel Crilloii with the contiguous Automobile Club 
and the Cercle de /' Union, 

These finely conceived designs were still only half 
finished on 30th May, 1770, the date of an appalling 
catastrophe which proved fatal to the growing popularity 
of the future Queen Marie Antoinette. Paris was hold- 
ing a fete in honour of the Dauphin's marriage with the 
daughter of Maria Theresa ; there was a display of fire- 
works, and just as this was concluding, an erratic rocket 

1 " Ah ! what a fine statue, what a noble pedestal ! The Virtues are 
afoot while Vice rides ccck-a-horse I " 



THE PLACE DE LA CONCORDE 317 

caused an outbreak of fire. ... A wild panic ensues, 
shouts and screams rend the air, and a frantic rush is 
made for the exits. On the South side, towards the 
Seine, many fell into the river,— there was no bridge there 
then, only a ferry to connect the two banks of the stream. 
The majority, however, tried to escape northwards by the 
Rue Royale ; but this too was hampered and obstructed 
by building material,— the ground cut up with trenches, 
these and great blocks of ashlar making it difficult, if 
not impossible, to pass along it. Yet this was the route 
chosen by the yelling crowd, which swept along ''with 
the impetuosity of a torrent". The crush was fnVhtful ■ 
and the living trampled the dead and dying underfoot. 
There was actual bloodshed too, for some wretches even 
drew their swords to cut themselves a passage through 
the struggling mass of humanity. The ground was strewn 
with the mangled corpses of men, women and children, 
for the horses, no less terrified than their masters threw 
down and kicked and trampled all who came near them, 
only to meet the same fate themselves presently. Next 
day a hundred and thirty-three dead bodies were lifted 
from the ground or drawn out of Gabriel's eight moats, 
and laid in rows in the Place, while over three hundred 
more died of their injuries. 

To banish these melancholy recollections, the city 
authorities installed in the Place Louis X V. the mounte- 
banks and ballad-mongers and tight-rope dancers whom 
the conflagration of the Fair of St. Ovide had driven away 
from the Place Vendome, their usual haunt ; and merri- 
ment was again the order of the day till, on the evening 
of 23rd September, 177;, another fire consumed all these 
booths, flimsily constructed of canvas and planks of wood. 



318 WALKS IN PARIS 

It was indeed on this occasion that Nicolet and Audinot, 
whose theatres were in high feather on the Boulevard du 
Temple, conceived the happy thought of " giving a perform- 
ance in aid of the sufferers from the fire ". This touching 
mark of fellow-feeling among artistes was welcomed with 
acclamation . . . and here was laid the foundation of all 
future " benefits" ! 

Between 1762 and 1770 Gabriel finally completed the 
two ranges of building whose imposing facades bound the 
Square on the North. The Garde- Meuble de la Couronne 
formerly occupied the whole ol the right-hand portion. 
On the other side were the Hotels de Coislin, de Dau- 
mont and de Crillon, where the representatives of those 
noble families lived. Soon the Place Louis X V. became 
the resort of all the fashionables and would-be fashionables 
of Paris, the place where great lords and rich " Farmers 
General," Duchesses and Opera dancers, were to be seen 
riding or driving to and fro. One day the renowned Mile. 
Duthe eclipsed all the beauties of the day ; the " Nouvelles 
a la Main " give us this surprising description of her coach 
and her costume : — " It was a carriage-body decorated with 
Cupids amid interlacing wreaths and flourishes, etc., sur- 
mounted by a gilt shell, lined with mother-of-pearl inside, 
and supported by bronze tritons ; the naves of the wheels 
were of solid silver ; the white horses were shod with silver, 
while the harness was plated with gold and adorned with 
waving plumes. On this shell reclined Mile. Duthe, in 
flesh-coloured silk tights and over them a chemisette of 
very transparent book-muslin, on her head a hat of black 
gauze all brim and no crown." 

Everybody was scandalised, and next day the madcap 
creature received orders not to display her venal charms 



THE PLACE DE LA CONCORDE 319 

in such an outrageous guise. For a week, however, nothing 
was talked of but her escapade and her fairylikc equipage ! 

On one occasion the Place Louis X V., after witness- 
ing so many embassies, reviews, processions and Royal 
progresses, became the scene of a deer hunt. On a 
summer's evening in 1788, a fawn, put up in the Bois de 
Boulogne by the Comte d'Artois' pack, leapt the fences, 
took the road to Paris, sped down the Champs- Elysees, 
and followed by hounds and huntsmen, the prickers 
sounding their horns and the caleches of the ladies 
invited to the chase galloping after, turned at bay in 
the Rue Royale ; there it was killed, the pitying spec- 
tators having vainly begged the poor beasts life. . . . 
How many of these same sportsmen were to meet their 
fate five years later within a few score yards of the 
spot where they cut the unhappy, terrified animal's 
throat ! x 

The Revolution breaks out, and the Place Louis XV. 
becomes the stage where many of the most thrilling scenes 
of that prodigious tragedy are enacted ! 

x " One fine summer's day I was going home to my apartments in the 
Garde-Meuble de la Couronne. It was about four o'clock in the afternoon, 
and the Rue Royale was full of people and crowded with horses and car- 
riages. When I came to accost my sister, I found she was in tears. I 
had not a notion what it all meant till she informed me that the cause of 
all this throng and excitement and weeping was the death of a fawn, 
which, hunted through the Bois de Boulogne by the Comte d'Artois, had 
leapt the enclosing fences, struck into the Paris road, sped down the 
Champs-Elysees, and followed by the whole pack, the sportsmen and the 
caleches of the ladies attending the chase, had finally turned at bay in the 
Rue Royale. A curious sight truly, — a Royal hunt in the finest street in 
Paris, but so touching as to have stirred the most lively feelings of sensi- 
bility and compassion on the part of my sister and many other ladies 
who from their windows had vainly begged mercy for the poor beast." — 
Memoir es du General Baron Thiebault, vol. i., p. 207. 



320 WALKS IN PARIS 

It swarms with Sectionaries and pikemcn, the Duthe's 
wonderful coach is replaced by the Car of the Goddess of 
Reason, personated by Mile. Maillard, of the Opera, or 
Mile. Amena'ide, " a tragic actress of bourgeois ante- 
cedents," a goodnatured young woman whose free and 
easy dress and bearing contrasted rather oddly with the 
majesty of her role. Not unnaturally objections were 
raised to the protracted halts for refreshment which she 
indulged in whenever the Car bearing the Divinity came 
to a stop, and to the familiar and fraternal fashion in 
which she shared her provision of wine and beer and 
cracknels with "Tyranny" and " Fanaticism,"' who after 
accepting these good things from their triumphant enemy, 
duly and submissively resumed their chains at her all- 
conquering feet. 

On 2 1st January, 1793, the guillotine was set up for 
the first time in the Place, and it was between the ruins 
of the statue of Louis XV. and the entrance to the Champs- 
Elysees that the head of Louis XVI. fell. The terms of 
the letter are well-known in which Sanson, the executioner, 
recounted the circumstances of the Monarch's last moments 
and death to the editor of Le Thermometre, a newspaper 
of that time : " . . . He asked if the drum would go on 
beating all the time. He was told we had no information 
on the point, and this was the truth. He mounted the 
scaffold and was for pushing to the front as if to address 
the crowd. But it was pointed out to him that this was 
still impossible. He let himself be led to the spot where 
his hands were tied, and where he cried out veiy loud : 
'People, I die innocent'. Next, turning to us, he said: 
1 Gentlemen, I am innocent of everything laid to my 
charge ; I wish my blood may cement the happiness of 




> 

X 



3 

o 

•J 



<u 



21 



322 



WALKS IN PARIS 



the French '. These, Citoyen, were his last and veritable 
words." 

The guillotine stood between the Statue of Liberty, — 
erected on the site of that of Louis XV., — and the ap- 
proach to the Pont Tournant, or Swing Bridge giving ac- 
cess to the Tuileries Gardens. 




Danton 



The scaffold, surrounded by a double line of gendarmes, 
was raised several steps above the level of the Place, which 
was almost always crowded. Some days the crush was 
tremendous to see the more famous heads fall. Many 




00 

CO 



g 
z 

cd 



43 



•a 
id 



3 

u 



E- 



324 WALKS IN PARIS 

stood on carts or clambered up ladders ; amateurs of strong 
emotions used to hire glasses, or bring them with them, to 
enable them to enjoy the last grimace of the unhappy 
creatures who " sneezed into the bran." As a rule it 
was a silent crowd, and the last cry of the victims could 
be plainly heard or the dull thud of the knife as it des- 
cended on the neck. Then rose a hurricane of howls and 
shouts, oaths and cheers, and one of the headsman's as- 
sistants, by command of the populace, would hold out the 
severed head at arm's length from the four corners of the 
gruesome platform. Curious spectators would gather on 
the Terraces of the Tuileries or, bent on securing a better 
view, would climb on to the colossal figures of Fame which 
stood on either side of the Western entrance to the Gardens. 
There was keen competition for the lodges of the Swiss who 
acted as Gatekeepers, the narrow windows of these over- 
looking the scaffold at not many yards' distance. The 
rooms were engaged beforehand at heavy prices ; supper 
parties were held there, and the place came to be known 
popularly as the " cabaret de la guillotine" — " At the sign 
of the Guillotine ". 

Danton's death had a touch of epic grandeur. Night 
was already falling ; he was the last to mount the scaffold 
reeking and red with the blood of all his friends who had 
been executed before him. His athletic figure stood out 
in its full height against the gold and purple of the setting 
sun ; throwing back his lionlike head, he gazed long at the 
vast Place, as though defying the headsman's knife. Under 
the darkening sky the indomitable Revolutionary seemed 
rather to be rising from the tomb than awaiting the fatal 
blow that was to sever head and trunk, and a shudder of awe 
ran through the excited crowd. 



THE PLACE DE LA CONCORD]-: 325 

Robespierre's end was horrible in the extreme. Amid 
the howls and insults and execrations of a whole city, the 
man before whom all cowered and trembled twenty-four 
hours before, was dragged, more dead than alive, covered 
with mud, his clothes in tatters, his head swathed in blood- 
stained rags, to the foot of the scaffold for which he had 
been the most odiously successful in providing victims. Be- 
fore pushing him under the knife, the executioner tore 
away the bandage which supported his shattered jaw, and 
Robespierre in the agony of this last torment uttered such 
a roar of pain that the whole immense Square trembled 
to hear it. . . . 

T1& Terror overpast, peace and reconciliation is the 
dream of the moment ; the scaffold is torn down, the Statue 
of Liberty restored, — and, propitious omen ! a nest of young 
doves is found by a happy chance in the globe the figure 
held in her hand. From 1795 the Place de la Revolution 
is known as the Place de la Concorde. 

There Napoleon reviews his triumphant armies returned 
from some amazing campaign in Germany, Austria, Spain 
or Russia. There Louis XVIII. displays the semblance, 
if not the reality, of kingly Majesty, as he dashes full gallop 
across the Square. 

But the centre of the Place called for some monument to 
complete its noble proportions. Louis-Philippe conceived 
the conciliatory idea, one that struck the " happy mean " be- 
tween all extremes, — to erect the obelisk there, the entire 
meaninglessness of which disarms the criticism of every 
party. Thenceforth this homesick exile,— does not Theo- 
phile Gautier say it is homesick ? — could murmur sadly : — 

" Je vois de Janvier a Decembre 
La procession des Bourgeois, 



326 WALKS IN PARIS 

Les Solon qui vont a la Chambre ! 
Et les Arthur qui vont au Bois." l 

The moats were filled up in 1844 in consequence of 
a panic which occurred at the time of the fetes in com- 
memoration of the July Revolution, and which almost 
exactly reproduced the circumstances of the catastrophe 
which cast a gloom over the wedding festivities of Marie 
Antoinette, — a display of fireworks in front of the Chamber, 
a terrible collision between two sections of the crowd surg- 
ing in opposite directions, men and women crushed to death 
or forced into the moats, the ground left strewn with 
wounded and dead. . . . Henceforth there is no danger, 
and Balzac's fascinating heroines, the Duchesses de Cadig- 
nan or de Maufrigneuse, the Jenny Cadines. the Tullies 
and the Esthers^ can throne it in their carriages without the 
smallest risk ; anon the beauties of the Second Empire 
will in their turn drive their C-springs in the memorable 
Square, with all Paris gazing in admiration at the perfect 
grace of the Empress, and the beauty of Mmes. de Gallifet, 
de Pourtales, de Rothschild, de Sagan, de Poilly, de 
Mouchy, — 

" Reines de l'Elegance et Princesses du geste." 2 

Some months ago now notices were posted on the 
pillars forming the angle of the Place de la Concorde and 
the Rue Boissy d'Anglas, — formerly called the Rue de la 
Bonne-Morue, an ugly name for a street sheltering the ele- 
gant Cercle de P Union Artistique which has its quarters 

1 " From January to December I look on at the endless procession of 
bourgeois, — the Solons who make our laws on their way to the Chamber, 
and the dandies on their way to the Bois." — Th. Gautier, Eiuaux et Camees y 
— Nostalgie d'Obelisque. 

2 " Queens of Elegance and Princesses of graceful motion." 



THE PLACE DE LA CONCORDE 



527 



in the charming mansion once belonging to Grimod de la 
Reyniere, — advertising the sale of the Hotel C 'rillo>i. With 
his usual kindness, the amiable Comte J. de Gontaut-Biron, 
one of the owners of this fine building, was good enough 
to take us through the rooms with him. We were never 
weary of admiring the charming boudoirs, and smaller 
rooms with carved chimney-pieces by Gouthiere, the great 
salon with its coats of arms and heraldic eagles, and above 
all the unrivalled view over the finest Square in the world, 
where order and magnificence, harmony and beauty reign 
supreme! 

With such a view before one's eyes, how help thinking 
of the strange Providence that has decreed this beautiful 
spot to be the majestic stage whither all the French Mon- 
archies have come to find their apotheosis and to perish ? 

Louis XVI. was beheaded there; there the Allies in 
1814 celebrated the Te Deum that greeted the fall of the 
Caesar who had been so long and gloriously triumphant ; 
Charles X. — on horseback — crossed it on his way to Ram- 
bouillet, and exile ; it was there Louis-Philippe hired the 
humble jiacre which in 1848 was the funeral-car of defunct 
Monarchy; finally on the 4th September, 1870, it was 
through the Gates of the adjoining Gardens, forced in by 
the pressure of an indignant populace, that the Tuilcries 
were invaded for the last time by the Parisian mob, before 
finally going up in whirlwinds of fire and smoke during 
the last convulsions of the expiring Commune! 

Lastly it was in the Place de la Concorde, that on 6th 
January, 1883, before the black-draped figure of the City 
of Strasbourg, was borne past in a triumphal car designed 
by Bastien-Lepage and shrouded in the tricolour, the 
coffin containing the body of Leon Gambetta, the last 



328 WALKS IN PARIS 

elected deputy of Alsace, the patriot who had Lhe signal 
honour, — the most enviable of all, — of bearing aloft in the 
hour of her calamity the flag of his suffering Country! 

What associations, what memories, cling about the 
spot! . . . Now, as of old, the Place de la Concorde \s still 
the frame wherein our Parisiennes best love to display 
their finest equipages, their most exquisite toilettes and 
their most heavenly smile ! Everywhere we behold change 
and modification and decay ; Monarchies vanish, ambitions 
and hostile passions sink into oblivion, war-songs fall silent, 
dreams fade away ; the only things that remain eternally, 
defying time and forgetfulness, ever radiant and ever 
victorious, are two, — the charm of Paris and the grace of 
her daughters ! 



INDEX 



Abbaye-aux-Bois, 56-67. 
Absalom, perruquier's sign, 267. 

Acquet, Mme., female highwayman, 
118. 

Alibaud, attemnt on life of Louis- 
Philippe, 42, 43. 

Allemane, 72. 

Ami du Peuple, 24. 

'• Ange-Gabriel," the, 242, 254, 255. 

Anglais, Rue des, 74-76. 

Archives Nationalcs(Malet), 192-203. 

Arnault, Souvenirs, 93. 

Aubray, Hotel, 186, 191. 

Aubryot, Hugues, Provost of Paris, 
182. 

Austerlitz, Pont d', 90, 103. 

Babeuf, Citoyen Gracchus, arrest, 

248-253- 
" Badinguet I.," 311. 
Balzac, 39, 116, 164, 326. 

— Illusions Perdus, 39. 
Bar bier, Journal de, 53. 
Barras, 206. 

— Mi- moires, 292, 295. 
Barres, Hotel des, 210. 
Barres, Rue des, 204, 211, 212. 
Barricade near Saint-Merri (1832), 

217-220. 
Barye, sculptor, 79. 
Basse-du-Temple, Rue, 278. 
Bastien-Lepage, 327. 
Bastille, 155-168. 

— models of fortress, 158. 

— remains, 164. 

— set of dominos presented to 

Dauphin, 159. 
Bastille, Place de la, 155-166. 

— — Colonne de Juillet, 164. 

— — elephant, 159. 
Bateaux-mouches, 120, 147. 
Batz, Baron de, 273-276. 
Beaumarchais, Jardin de, 167, 168. 



Beautreillis, Rue, 183. 

Bed of Justice, 138, 139. 
I "Bellman of the Dead," 235. 
j Beranger, La Gaudriole, 227. 
! Berlioz, 277. 

Beugnot, Comte, Memoires, 130. 

Bizet, composer, 55. 
! Boileau, 115, 225. 

Bonaparte, Napoleon, 7, 94, 106, 292- 
2 95, 306, 325. 

Bonheur, Rosa, 7g, 112. 
j Bon Marche, Square du, 56. 

Bonne-Nouvelle, Notre-Dame de, 
i 183, 276. 

Bons-Enfants, Rue des, 257, 265. 

Bossuet, an. 

Bouchardon, sculptor, 314. 

Boulevard Beaumarchais, 155, 167, 
168. 

— Bonne-Nouvelle, 266-276. 

— du Temple, Old, 277-288. 

— — — " Boulevard du 

Crime," 285. 

— — — demolished, 288. 

— — — ten Theatres in a 

row, 284, 285. 
Boulogne, Jean de, sculptor, 173. 
Bouquinistes on the Quais, 103. 
Bourse, 298-300. 

— and Neighbourhood, 289-300. 

— "quick lunch," 2g8, 299. 
Brinvilliers, Marquise de, 186, igi. 
Brise-Miche, Rue, 217, 223, 224. 
Brissot's widow, 23, 24. 

Brune, Marechal, 24. 
BufTon, 81-83. 

Buvette du Palais, 122, 126, 127, 
129-133. 



Caamano, Abbe, 195, 203. 

Cadoudal, Georges, 7. 

" Caffe Royal," 303. 

Cain, Georges, Coins de Paris, 166. 

329 



3Q 



WALKS IN PARIS 



Campan, Mme., 160. 
Capucines, Couvent des, 304. 
Carnavalet, Musee, 159, 273. 
Carrier, 212. 

Carro, Vie de Santerre, 163. 
Causes Celebres (Brinvilliers), iSg. 

— — (Ravaillac), 231. 

— — (Verger), 10, n. 
" Caveau," the, 230. 
Cercle Constitutionnel, 93. 
Champeaux, Restaurant, 298-300. 
Chanoinesse Rue, 116, 117. 
Charles V. (of France), 171. 
Charles V., Rue, 180. 

Charles IX., 173. 
Charles X., procession, 112. 
Chateaubriand, Memoires d'Outre- 
Tombe, 62, 66. 

— Souvenirs, 63. 
Chatillon, Claude, 174. 
Chenier, Andre, 269. 
Cheret, advertisements, 72. 

" Cheval-Blanc," the, 17, 28. 
Chevalier d'Har mental (Dumas 

pere), 262. 
Chopin, death, 309. 
Clairon, Mile., actress, 36. 
Clamart, Cimetiere de, 4. 
Clery, Rue de, 266, 269, 275. 
Clisson, Olivier de, beheaded, 24^. 
Coche d'eau, from Burgundy to 

Paris, 106. 
Collot d'Herbois, 206, 269. 
Colonne Vendome, 301-313. 

— — destruction of Statue of 

Louis XIV., 304. 

— — destruction of Statue of 

Napoleon I., 309, 310. 

— — second Statue ol Na- 

poleon I., 310. 

— — thrown down by Com- 

munards (1871), 311. 
Compressed-air bells (construction 

of " Metropolitain "), 150. 
Conciergerie, 98, 112, 122-133, x 42, 
154, 210. 

— Gate of the, 124, 125, 126. 
Conde, the Great, 109. 
Condorcet, 49, 50. 

— death, 51. 
Constant, Benjamin, 60, 93. 
Constituent Assembly, 3. 
Convention, 6, 204, 205, 208, 290. 
Corday, Charlotte, 21, 126, 141. 
Cordeliers, Club des, 19. 



Courbet, G. (painte;), throws do\vn» 

Colonne Vendome, 311, 313. 
Cour du Heaume, 242, 244. 
Cour du Mai (Palais de Justice), 122. 
Cour de Rouen (Rohan), 18. 
" Courrier de Lyon," 1S6. 
Courtois, report, 209. 
Courvol, Citoyen, report, 205. 
Couthon, death, 212. 
Crillon, Hotel, 315, 327. 

Dagobert, Tour, 106, 118, 121. 
Dame aux Camelias (Dumas fils) r 

296, 298. 
Dante, 74. 

— Paradiso, 74. 
Danton, 19, 21, 126. 158, 306. 

— arrest, 21, 22. 

— executed, 324. 

Dauphin's organ at Saint-Sulpice, 47. 
David, painter, 5. 
Decourcelle, Pierre, 78, 82. 
Dejazet, Mile., actress, 286. 
Delacroix, painter, 32, 40, 44, 79. 
Delaroche, Paul, painter, 40, 42. 
Desmoulins, Camille, 3, 23, 126,306. 

— — marriage, 47. 
Diane de Poitiers, 172. 
Dolet, Etienne, executed, 69. 
Drouet, Postmaster of Varennes, 249. 
Dubarry, Mme., 126, 236. 

— — her negro Zamor, 69-71. 
Dubois, Cardinal, 262. 

Dumas fils, Dame aux Camelias, 298. 
Dumas pere, 225. 

— — Chevalier d'Harmental T 

262. 

— — first performance of La 

Reine Margot, 286. 

— — in Duke of Orleans' Bu- 

reaux, 263-265. 

— — Theatre Historique, 279- 

286. 
Duplessy, Abbe, Paris Religieux, 

109, 112. 
Duthe, Mile., 317. 

— — her surprising equipage, 

318. 

Ecole de Medecine, 18. 
Elephant, Place de la Bastille, 159. 
Epee de Bois, Cabaret de 1', 225. 

Faculte de Medecine, remains of 
old, 72. 









INDEX 



33i 



Ferou, Rue, 4g. 

Ferronnerie, Rue de la, 230-235. 

Feuillants, Couvent des, 304-308. 

Fieschi, 40. 

Filles Saint-Thomas, Couvent des, 

289. 
Fontaines, Cour des (Rue des Bons- 

Enfants), 260. 
Fouarre, Rue du (Rue Dante), 73. 
Fouquet, 157. 

Fouquier-Tinville, 90, 120, 141, 142. 
Fournier, Chroniquc des Rues de 

Paris, 92, 93. 
France, Anatole, 3^. 
Fulbert, le Chanoine, 118. 

Gabriel, architect, 315. 
Gambetta, funeral of, 327. 
Garanciere, Rue, 49. 
Gautier, Theophile, 171. 

— Emaux et Camees, 325. 
Gavroche (Les Miserables), 162. 
Genevieve, Sainte, 2. 
Geoffroy-PAsnier, Rue, 1, 204, 215. 
Gerome, 79. 

" Gilded Chamber," The, 138. 
Giraffe, a la, 84, 86. 
Goncourt, E. and J. de, 28, 104. 
Gontaut-Biron, executed, 157. 
Goujon, Jean, sculptor, 236. 
Gounod, 280. 

— first night of Faust, 2S0, 282. 
Grammont, actor, 155. 
Grand' Chambre, la, 138. 
Grande-Truanderie, Rue de la, 242, 

244, 245, 247, 249. 

Grasilier, Leonce, Nouv. Revue Re- 
trospective, 249. 

11 Great Alexandre," The (Dumas 
pere), 263. 

Grenier-sur-1'Eau, Rue, 204, 214. 

Greve, Place de, 177, 205, 209. 

Grimacier, Le, 283. 

Guillotin, Dr., 23. 

Guillotine, 320. 

— in Place de la Revolution, 

322-324. 

Halles aux Vins, les, 104. 
Halles, les, and Neighbourhood, 

242. 
Hanotaux et Vicaire, Jeuncssc de 

Balzac, 40. 
Haussmann, Baron, 101, 288. 
Hebert, 126. 



Henri II., killed, 172. 

Henri III., 95. 

Henri IV., 109, 174, 175, 230. 

— statue on Pont-Neui", 310. 
Henri IV., Passage, 260. 
Henriot, death of, 204, 210, 212. 
Histoire Parlcmcntaire, 142, 212. 
Hokusai, Japanese artist, 147. 
Holstein (Theatre du ChAtekt), 100. 
Horloge, Quai de 1', 98, 138. 

— Tour de 1', 154. 
Hotel de Ville, 204, 218. 

— — Cabinet Vert, 208. 
Hotel-Dieu, 112, 113. 
Hugo, Victor, 162, 178. 

— — Actes et Paroles, 178, 

179. 

— — Les Miserables, 162. 
Hulin, General, 308. 

Impasse-Villehardouin, 192-195, 

202. 
Indivisibility, Place de 1' (Place des 

Vosges), 178. 
Ingres, painter, 32. 
Innocents, Cimetiere des, 234. 
Innocents, Fontaine des, 236. 
Institut, L', 94. 

Internonce, Metnoires de V, 128. 
Iron Mask, Man of the, 157. 



Jardin des Plantes, 79-89, 104. 

— — labyrinth, 87. 

— — menagerie, 83. 
"Jardin du Roi," 88. 

Jube at Saint-Etienne du Mont, 16. 
Junot, Mme. (Duchesse d'Abrantds), 
94. 

— — Memoires, g$. 
Jussieu, M. de, cedar of Lebanon, 

81. 

Lacroix, murder of, 225. 

Lafon, Abbe, 193, 197, 203. 

La Fontaine, 234. 

La Force, Prison of, 195, 199. 

Lallot, de, 292. 

Lamarque, General, funeral of, 217. 

Lamartine, Cours familier, 5g, 60, 

04. 
Lamorliere, Rosalie, 128. 
Langes, Savalette de, 57. 
La Rochefoucauld, Hotel de, 32. 
Latude, prisoner of the Bastille, 156. 
Lavoisier, 54. 



332 



WALKS IN PARIS 



La Voisin, 157. 

Law (Mississippi scheme), 225-227, 

262, 303. 
Lecouvreur, Adrienne, 33. 

— — burial of, 35, 36. 
Legion d'Honneur, Chancellerie de 

la, 90-93. 
Legislative Assembly, 305. 
Lenotre, G., Vieux Papicrs, 57. 
Le Peletier, Section, 289, 290. 
Lescombat, murder of, 53. 
Lesdiguieres, Rue de, 164. 
L'Estoile, Journal de, 97, 231. 
Lieuthraud, 92. 
Lingeres, Bureau des. 236. 
Liszt, Chopin, 310. 
" Little Corsican Officer," 295. 
" Little Geneva," 32. 
" Lost and deserted children," 136. 
Louis-le-Grand, Place, 302, 303. 
Louis XI., 172. 
Louis XIII. , 175. 
Louis XIV., and the Parlement, 

139- 

— opens the Boulevard du 

Temple, 283. 
Louis XV., 313. 

— Statue, 314. 
Louis XVI., 304, 305. 

— at the Temple, 271. 

— execution, 320, 322. 

— plan of rescue, 271-276. 
Louis XVIII., 325. 
Louis-Philippe, 40, 325. 
Louvois, 302. 

Lune, Rue de la, 266. 268. 
Lunette. Cabaret du Pere, 74, 76. 
Luxembourg, Marechal de, 109. 
Lycee Charlemagne, 182. 

Madelonnettes, Prison des, 55. 
Malesherbes, 126. 
Malet, General, 308, 309. 

— — conspiracy, 192-203. 

— — execution, 200, 201. 
Manege, Salle de, 305, 308. 
Manon Lescatit, 259. 

Marat, 71, 304. 

— assassinated, 21. 

— funeral of, 4. 

Marche aux Chevaux, Place du (duel 
of the " Minions"), 

173- 

— — Fleurs, 120, 146, 148. 

— — Innocents, 230, 236, 237. 



Margot, Queen, 184, 231. 
Marie-Antoinette, 315. 

— execution, 126-128. 

— trial, 141, 142. 
Marivaux, dramatist, 225. 
Massenet, composer, 54, 55, 277-280, 

Meda, Gendarme, Precis historique, 

208. 
Medicis, Catherine de, 173. 

— Marie de, 231. 

Memorial de Sainte-Heline (Napo- 
leon I.), 293. 

Menou, General, 290, 293, 295. 

Mercier, Tableau de Paris, 6. 

" Metropolitain " construction of 
the, 146-154. 

" Minions," duel of the, 173. 

Mirabeau, 156. 

— funeral of, 3. 
Moliere, 186. 

Montaigu, Jean de, beheaded for 

sorcery, 181. 
Montgomery, Sire de, 172. 
Morphise, Mile., 236. 

Napoleon III., marriage of, no. 
Napoleonic legend, 286, 287. 
Notre-Dame, 106-112, 119. 

— Archeveche, no. 

— " Porte Rouge," no. 
Nougaret, 211. 

Odeon, 8. 

Opera, burnt down, 258. 

Orleans, Chancellerie d", 260. 

Paix, Rue de la, 301, 308, 312. 
Palais de Justice, 98, 122-133. 

— — buvette du Palais, 122, 

126, 127. 

— — vestiaire Bosc, 135. 
Palais-Royal, 147, 258, 289, 306. 
Pantheon, 1-17, 119, 313. 
Pare, Souvenirs, 158. 

Parvis, Place du, 106, 112. 
Pas-de-la-Mule, Rue du, 168, 169. 
Passage Charlemagne, 180-183. 

— du Commerce, 18-30. 
Pasteur, 16. 

Pere Buvat (Chevalier d' Harmental) , 

262. 
Pessard, Dictionnaire historique, 53, 
182. 

— Nouvcau Diet, historique, 228. 



INDEX 



333 






Pharamond, Restaurant, 249. 
Philippe-Auguste, 73, 183. 
Philippe-le-Bel, 107. 
Pierre-au-Lard, Rue, 217, 223. 
Pigoreau, Librairie, 95. 
Pillory, the (Marcheaux Innocents), 

243- 
Pirouette, Rue, 242, 243, 244, 254. 

— — origin of name, 243. 
Place de la Concorde, 314-328. 

— — accident (1770), 315-317- 

— — guillotine set up, 320. 

— — Louis XVI. executed, 

320, 322. 

— — obelisk erected, 325. 

— — so named, 1795, 325. 
Place Louis XV., 5. 

Place Maubert, 68, 69. 

Place Maubert, and Neighbourhood, 

68-78. 
" Poinme de Pin," the, 115. 
Pont-Neuf, 95, 97. 
Port-aux-Pommes, 120. 
Pre-aux-Clercs, 31. 
" Precieuses, Les," 170, 176. 
Prefecture de Police, 134-144. 

— — " Lost and deserted chil- 

dren," 136. 
" Premiere Chambre, La," 138, 144. 
Puits d'Amour, le, 244. 
" Purveyor to the guillotine," 124. 

Quartier latin, 16. 

Queen Margot (Dumas pere), first 

performance, 286. 
Quelus, 173. 

" Queues " at provision shops, 290. 
"Quick lunch" (Bourse), 298, 299. 
Quincampoix, Rue (Law), 217, 225- 

227, 229. 

Rabelais, 73, 115, 184. 

— Vie de Gargantua, 68. 
Rachel, actress, 171, 172. 
Racine, 33, 34, 118. 

Ravaillac, assassin of Henri IV., 175, 
230-234. 

— executed, 234. 
Reason, Goddess of, 109. 

— — at Notre-Dame, 109. 

— — triumphal car, 320. 
Recamier, Mme., 59, 67. 

— — Life by Herriot, 60, 61, 

66. 
Regent, the, 262, 302. 



Revolution of 1830, 164, 186. 
Revolutionary Tribunal, 141. 
Richard, turnkey of the Concier- 

gerie, 128, 132. 
Richelieu, Cardinal, 170, 176, 265. 
Robespierre, 21, 71, 126, 142, 204, 
205, 209, 210. 

— executed, 212, 324, 325. 
Robespierre the younger, 209, 211. 
Rochegude, de, Guide pratique 118, 

182. 
Rohan, Cour de, see Cour de Rouen, 

18. 
Roland, Mme., 98, 126, 127, 141, 148. 
Roman Paris, 148. 
Rousseau, funeral of, 5. 
Royale, Place (Place des Vosges), 
169-179. 

— Rue, fawn killed in, 317, 318, 

3i9- 

Sade, Marquis de, 306. 
Saint-Aignan, Chapelle, 120. 
Saint-Denis, Porte, 266, 270, 275. 
Sainte-Aure, Hotel, 16, 17. 
Sainte-Beuve, Causeriesdu Lutidi, 5g. 

— Nouveaux Lundi, 61. 
Sainte-Chapelle, 95. 
Sainte-Genevieve, Montagne, 7, 10. 
Saint-Etienne des Grecs, Rue, b. 
Saint-Etienne du Mont, 4, 10. 
Saint-Gervais, 204, 211. 
Saint-Hilaire, Geotfroy, 84. 
Saint-Honore, Cloitre, 259. 
Saint-Honore, Rue, 258, 259, 306. 
Saint-Jacques, Rue, 5. 
Saint-Jacques, Tour, 101, 147, 228. 
Saint-Julien-le-Pauvre, 74. 
Saint-Just, 205, 209, 210. 

— death, 212. 
Saint-Merri, 217. 

— barricade (1832), 217-221. 
Saint-Pierre, Bernardin de, 83. 
Saint-Roch, 199, 233, 295. 
Saint-Sulpice, ng. 
Saint-Sulpice and Neighbourhood, 

44-55-, 
Salle d'Egalite, La, 141. 
Salm, Hotel de, 90, 91. 
Salm-Kirburg, Prince, 90, 91. 
Salpetriere, 104. 

Sanson, executioner, 125, 126, 320. 
Santerre, 271. 
Sardou, Victorien, 19, 20, 21, 166, 

167, 297. 



334 



WALKS IN PARIS 



Sasse, Marie, singer, 268. 
" Sauvage, Pere," 87. 
Scarron, 2x1. 
Scellieres, Abbey of, 94. 
Scriveners, Corporation of, 237. 
Scudery, Mile, de, 176. 
Sechelles, Herault de, 159. 
Seine, the, go-104. 
Sens, Hotel de, 180, 184. 
Servandoni, Rue, 49. 
Sevigne, Mme. de, 170, 191, 211. 
Sibour, Archbishop, murdered, 10, 

11. 
Sigier (Dante's master), 74. 
Silvestre, Salle, 265. 
Sorbonne, 26. 

Souffiot, architect of Pantheon, 3. 
Soulier, Colonel, 199. 
Sully, Bishop Maurice de, 107. 
Sutherland, Duchess of, 157. 

Taille-Pain, Rue, 217, 222, 223. 
Tallemant des Reaux, 32. 
" Tapissier de Notre-Dame," 109. 
Temple, Prison of the, 249, 270, 304, 

3°5- 
Theatre de l'Opera Comique, 295, 
296. 

— Favart, 295. 

- Feydeau, 289, 292, 295. 

— Historique (Dumas pere), 279. 

— Illustre, 186. 
Thermidor, events of, 9, 204. 
" Thermometre, Le," 320. 
Theroigne, Mile., 304. 
Thiebault, Baron, Mhnoires, 4, 320. 
Tilly, Comte de, Mhnoires, 92. 
Topographie Medicate de Paris, 177. 



Tournelles, Hotel des, 171. 
Turgot's Plan of Paris (1739), 71. 

Underneath the Seine (Construc- 
tion of the " Metropolitain "), 
146-154. 

Vatel, Histoire de Mme. du Barry, 

70. 
Vaubernier, Jeanne (Mme. Dubarry), 

236. 
Vaublanc, du, Mhnoires sur la 

Revolution, 30. 
Vaudeville, 289, 296. 
"Vaudevilles," 174. 
Vaugirard, Rue de, 53. 
Venise, Rue de, 217, 224, 225. 
Verger, assassin of Abp. Sibour, 10. 
Verlaine, Paul, 58. 
Vestiaire Bosc (Palais de Justice), 

135- 
Villette, M. de, 93. 
Villon, poet, 116. 
Visconti, Rue, 31-43. 
Vivienne, Rue, 289. 
Voltaire, 93, 94, 157, 159. 

— funeral of, 5. 
Vosges, Place des (Place Royale), 

169-179. 

Whyte, a Bastille prisoner, 156. 
Widor, Ch. M., organist of Saint- 
Sulpice, 45. 

Yesterday's papers, Subscriptions 
invited to, 260. 

Zamor, Mme. Dubarry's negro, 69- 
71. 



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